


Homesick

by byebyebluejay



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A+ dude Harry Potter, Anal Sex, Auror Harry Potter, Dancing Lessons, Depression, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Horror, House Elves, House magic, M/M, Malfoy Manor, Patronus, Sad Draco Malfoy, Sharing a Bed, Sleep Paralysis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2020-11-02 12:16:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20743343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/byebyebluejay/pseuds/byebyebluejay
Summary: The war is over, but recovery is just beginning. In the tender new peace, most of Wizarding Britain would prefer not to see anyone who ever stood behind Voldemort. Draco understands this completely, and surrenders himself to a life of solitude in Malfoy Manor. The only problem is, his house starts rejecting him, too. Against his expectations, it's Auror Potter to the rescue.





	1. Chapter 1

Malfoy Manor was wilting. It had started slowly. Draco had been walking through a corridor on the first floor without purpose or destination in mind when he’d noticed a curve in the arm of a wall sconce that he hadn’t seen there before. In fact, all the sconces in the hallway had it; a dejected slump. Just a lapse in his knowledge of the Manor, he thought. After all, it wasn’t as though taking careful note of the wall fixtures had been his top priority in recent years. Maybe an original had been damaged and couldn’t be repaired or replaced for whatever reason, so his parents had bought all new ones that happened to be a touch more dismal. That was all the thought he gave to it, at first. Then the doors had become uncooperative. They swelled in their frames, stuck and warped and scraped across the floor, hinges complaining. Draco had sent Mimsy, the house elf he’d inherited from the Lestrange Estate, after them with a jar of powdered Shushabye root. But, they only developed a new habit of slamming closed when he left them unlatched, or opening slowly to let in draughts. Then there were the curtains. Draco had meandered, barefoot and clinging to his housecoat, into the larger of the two formal dining rooms, only to see Mimsy daubing frantically at the curtains. They had shriveled. A dull brown discoloration had eaten into the rich gold brocade curtains, climbing nearly a third of the way up their length.

“What’s wrong with them?” Draco asked, looking around at the roomful of moldering fabric.

“I is not knowing, Master Malfoy,” Mimsy said, patting more Gilfrey’s Gentle Silk-Safe Stain Remover onto the once-bright fabric, “It is not me doing it.”

“Oh, never mind,” Draco said, waving a hand, “I’ll just have them replaced.” Only, he never did. He never seemed to find the will or energy to take himself to Diagon Alley. These days, he rarely had the desire to leave his bedroom. Maybe it showed in his writing, because his mother’s letters had taken on tones of increasing concern.

‘You are of course welcome to join us any time,’ The most recent one had read, Draco crouched over a writing desk that felt as though it had shrunk by a decent ten percent, ‘The Mediterranean air is doing wonders for your father’s health, and the gardens at the cottage are in full bloom.’ They had gone to the smaller French estate after the trials to escape the unpleasantness lingering in Britain, and in the hope that the change in climate would benefit his father’s flagging health. Either out of pride or sheer indifference, Draco had not accompanied them. He was still not sure which.

‘I appreciate the offer, Mother,’ Draco had written back, ‘However, someone should remain in Wiltshire to keep an eye on the estate.’ The Manor did not seem to be benefitting much from his stewardship, however. A week or two after the affair with the curtains, a horrible miasma crept into the house. The air felt thick and fetid, smelling of dank earth and mold. It stole the gleam out of the polished wood floors and settled over the windows in a haze, refusing to let more than a few watery beams of sunlight past the glass. The furniture all became impossible to get truly comfortable on.

“Can’t you do anything about that, Mimsy?” Draco asked, staring listlessly at the floor of the drawing room, which had adopted a greyish tinge.

“Mimsy is polishing the floors three times yesterday,” The elf said twisting the hem of her dishtowel apron, “But it stays.”

“Oh, it’s not your fault,” Draco sighed, moving to sprawl on the loveseat, “Don’t obsess over it. I doubt that will help anything.”

When Pansy returned from her eight-month sojourn in Milan, Draco entertained his first guest in just as long. School friends though they had been, Draco was not so casual that he’d let her see him at his worst. He wasn’t that far gone. So, he showered and put on a nice dove grey silk shirt and put a real effort into fixing up the rooms where he’d be entertaining her. But no matter how many cleaning charms he shot at the windows and floors, or how much of Mrs. Skower's Magical Mess Remover he scrubbed into the hearth, the downstairs sitting room remained resolutely gloomy. He managed to make the floor adopt a greasy sort of shine, and the sofa had stopped looking like one good bounce would do it in after the third mending charm, but he’d really had to try.

“What’s the matter with it?” Pansy asked with indelicate disgust as Draco led her from the entry hall into the sitting room, “It wasn’t this bad when I left. Have you lost control of your elf or something?”

Draco gave her a cool look as the teapot floated off the tea tray Mimsy was carrying and poured each of them a cup of fragrant Darjeeling. A silver tower of dainty finger sandwiches and French pastries hovered to land at the center of the small table. He lifted the china cup to his lips and took a sip. The tea, at least, was as good as it had ever been. It smelled like a flower garden after a rain and tasted like a soft spring evening. “Hardly,” He said at last, but then a bit of helplessness slipped out without his permission, “I have no idea what’s the matter with it. Nothing I do seems to help. It’s only getting worse. I’d write to Mother about it, but I don’t want to worry her. She has more than enough to cope with already.”

“Maybe she should worry,” Pansy said, unruffled by either Draco’s disapproval or his subsequent emotional outburst, taking a sip of her own tea, “This place looks like it’s starting to rot away. Maybe she would know what to do about it.”

“I know the history of my own house,” Draco said, scowling, “There’s not a single record of anything like this happening in any of the estate’s records. One thousand years of pristine accounts I searched through, and this is unprecedented.”

“Have you asked anyone else, then?” Pansy asked, sparing one distasteful glance for the carpet, which had developed a sickly hue and a few rolls that refused to be coaxed down, “You can’t live like this.” Draco hadn’t. So, after enduring an hour of Pansy’s critical perception, he resolved to go to an expert on the restoration and maintenance of old wizarding houses in Diagon Alley on Monday. Except Monday was grey and dismal, Tuesday was worse, and when Wednesday brought sunshine, Draco just couldn’t bring himself around to the idea of getting dressed and parading himself down a sure-to-be-bustling street, facing the disgust he was sure to receive. He just didn’t need it. So, he stayed home instead, pretending to read a book in the musty library and sending hexes at the Vampiric Moths that fluttered threateningly close to his ears. He put a cursory sort of effort into looking for the nest but couldn’t find it. Then he sent Mimsy to find it, but her search hadn’t turned up anything either. Draco locked up the library after that and resolved to deal with the problem tomorrow, when he had just a little more energy.

Drifting through indistinguishable night and day a week dragged into a month, and one month multiplied to two. His mother’s letters kept coming of course, and he answered them, and occasionally Pansy would come to visit and criticize the state of the furniture or the shine of the silverware, but for the most part little changed. The house seemed to slump lower and lower in its foundations, but Draco stopped caring. There was no one around to impress. The library was unbearable these days, but Draco didn’t ever really feel like reading. Mimsy kept on cleaning, and the food looked as nice as ever, but even if it hadn’t, he didn’t think it would have made much difference. Nothing appealed to him, anyway. Mimsy fretted and tried to ply him with little glasses of mulled wine and mugs of thick, spiced drinking chocolate. She put warming pans in his bed every night, slipped tonics into his bath, and would sometimes leave a particularly nice and freshly pressed set of his robes hanging on the hook in his room in a way she must have hoped was enticing. Sometimes Draco would even force down the drinks or put the robes on, just to stop her from peering nervously at him for a little while. But he was never in the mood for the drinks, and he had nowhere to wear the robes to. Nowhere he wanted to go, at least. He was only waiting. For what, he wasn’t sure. For his parents to come back, though their stay in France didn’t seem to be coming to an end anytime soon. Until everyone had forgotten about him, maybe, however many decades that would take. Or perhaps for the house to give up and swallow him whole, subsume him into the peeling wallpaper and stained grout. It was all fine, all good enough for him and more than he probably deserved. So, Draco let it continue without any further intervention—until the Boggart.

The third-floor sitting room had once been his favorite room in the house. He rarely visited it these days. But on a whim, wandering about the house in a night shirt, he drifted in. Considering the state of the rest of Malfoy Manor, it really didn’t look too bad. The walls were still spotless, painted a pretty shade of powder blue, framed with intricate crown molding. Huge windows overlooked the gardens and the forest beyond. The furniture was all Regency era: cream brocade with dark carved wood and gold fittings. The floors had dulled a little as they had in the rest of the house, but the antique grand piano, with its gold-leafed reliefs of flowers and greenery, and its sly wooden legs carved to look like a dragon’s feet, stood impressive as ever.

It had been years—years! —since Draco had so much as touched the thing, but between the age of six and the summer after his fourth year, his parents had hired a tutor for him. Once upon a time he had been quite good, until other, darker pursuits had claimed his time and his hands. He stared at it, considering the dragon ivory keys with their opalescent patina, carefully cultivated by hundreds of years of use under his family’s fingers. The instrument had a lovely voice, too, with strings made of copper-wrapped dragon heartstring, and the whole thing was goblin-made. It was probably one of the most expensive things in the house. Beautiful and irreplaceable, gleaming in the pale sunlight. Draco stared at it for a span of minutes, until his eyes grew tired of it, then he looked away, across the estate’s dark forests and gardens, overgrown now and starting to go to seed. He should hire someone to look after it, even if it would mean paying a premium to win them over to working on the Malfoy Estate. Once it would have been a choice position, to be head gardener to an old wizarding family of good name. Though, of course, that was the problem, wasn’t it? The Malfoy name wasn’t so good anymore.

Draco walked over to the chaise lounge and tipped himself onto it, sending up a puff of dust from the velvet as he landed. He was settling in for another long, grim brood about the mistakes he’d made, the confused tangle of emotions he felt about his father, the things he’d done and almost done and hadn’t done during the war and his feeling of utter hopelessness about the days to come when the sound of hinges creaking roused him. Automatically, he looked towards the door, but it was closed, as he’d left it. A cold, crawling terror wriggled in at the base of his skull and slid down the length of his spine, setting every hair on his body standing on end in its wake. With slow, certain dread, Draco turned to look at the piano. A pale, slender hand was pushing up the cover. Then an arm in a tight black linen sleeve followed the hand. A shoulder. A head. Draco’s heart was in his mouth as he scrambled backwards, over the back of the chaise lounge, stumbling over himself, dizzy with terror but unwilling to turn away from the thing that was crawling out of the piano. Gaunt, bloodless, lank-haired and staring at him with awful, empty eyes but still unmistakable as she dragged herself forward on skeletal hands: his mother. An Inferius.

He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. At least, not until her fingers were reaching out towards his ankle. Then suddenly, he could. With a mad burst of movement, Draco leaped out of the creature’s reach and bolted for the door. He was just a moment too slow in reaching it, in closing it, to miss seeing a second hand reaching out of the piano. He slammed it shut, grabbed his wand from his sleeve and leveled it at the lock, “Colloportus!” The spell flashed and the door locked with a click. Breathless, cold sweat beading on his brow and breaking out all down his back, Draco collapsed against the wall of the corridor, stunned. And then the fear was breaking, bubbling over into overwhelming guilt and loathing and loneliness and misery, and Draco put his head into his arms and shook with silent sobs. That was how Mimsy found him fifteen minutes later, and she helped him up to bed, and brought him a calming draught, and under its influence Draco fell asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

It had to be a Boggart, of course. Voldemort was dead, and his mother and father had disappeared to France, but they were alive and as well as could be expected. The arrival of his mother’s owl the next morning reassured him of that. The only trouble was, Draco had never actually managed to cope with a Boggart before. He’d stupidly blown off the lesson his third year, and the opportunity to master the skill had never come around again. Even if it had, Draco wasn’t confident in his current ability to laugh in the face of his worst nightmares. The thought of going in there to deal with whatever horror the Boggart could brew up for him plunged his guts into ice. He wasn’t sure Pansy had ever learned either, and Draco certainly wasn’t going to call his parents back in from the Côte d'Azur because he couldn’t handle a Boggart. Anyway, he didn’t want them to see what the house had become under his stewardship. With few options left, Draco sent an owl to the DMLE, requesting assistance in banishing a dark creature. 

Draco had no expectation that the DMLE would respond to his owl. He expected to have to wait a few days to give them a reasonable time to ignore him before marching down to the Ministry to demand to be seen. He might not have been at the height of British Wizarding society anymore, but he was still a taxpayer. But it was less than twelve hours later when Mimsy appeared with a crack in his bedroom, clutching her ears in alarm. Draco stared at her over the top of the _Daily Prophet_ he was only half reading.

“Master Malfoy,” She said, voice a half-octave shriller than usual, “There is two Aurors at the gate. Auror Weasley and Auror Potter. _Harry Potter_,” She added in tones of hushed horror.

“Do they have—” Draco began, before realizing that, against all odds, they were almost certainly here in response to the letter he’d sent yesterday. Why would they send Potter out on a minor errand like banishing a Boggart, partner in tow? Unless, of course, they wanted to check up on the ex-Death Eater and the Malfoy Estate at the same time. Draco sighed, tossed the paper aside and rose. “Show them in,” He said, “I wrote to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement yesterday. Tell them I’ll be down in a minute,” He paused, wrestling with his old grudge against Weasley in particular, before adding, “They have the hospitality of the estate, if they want it. Tea, coffee, a bite to eat. Whatever they like. I may be a little while. And try not to look so horrified, Mimsy. Potter will think I’m abusing you and engineer a way to set you free.” With a full-body shudder, Mimsy disapparated.

As quickly as he could be bothered to, Draco showered, shaved, brushed his teeth and hair, and dressed in an expertly tailored white linen shirt, black trousers, and riding boots made of Ukrainian Ironbelly. He considered putting on one of the last items of clothing he’d bothered ordering for himself—a forest green jacket with silver fastenings and velvet side-panels, which was flattering, stylish, and never worn—but he couldn’t be bothered to summon it out of his wardrobe. He went downstairs without it.

Potter and Weasley, under Mimsy’s watchful gaze, were in the ground-floor sitting room. Weasley was all but pacing a hole into the carpet, which Draco might have minded more if the wretched thing didn’t look so dull and threadbare. Potter was sitting on a sofa, stiff and uncertain, despite the cup of tea in his hand. Weasley rounded on Draco as soon as he entered the room, ears only a few shades less red than the coat of his Auror uniform. It didn’t suit him at all. “What are you playing at, Malfoy?” He asked, spitting the name like a curse. With Weasley, at least, that was nothing new. “You write asking for Auror assistance, and we come, and you make us wait twenty minutes before you decide to walk into your own living room.”

“Pleasure to see you again, Weasley,” Draco said in tones of perfect civility, glad when Ron grimaced at him, “I’m sorry to keep you waiting. I didn’t expect the Ministry would send someone so promptly. I hope Mimsy made you comfortable.” Harry set down his tea and stood up. He was wearing his full Auror uniform too. Horrible thing. Much too trendy, with its dragonhide trousers and sleek, asymmetrical red jacket. It had clearly been designed with Harry and the members of his student militia in mind. It was a complete abandonment of tradition. But as much as the color of the jacket clashed with Weasley’s hair, the uniform did wonders on Harry. It made his skin warmer, his hair blacker, his eyes brighter with the contrast. Looking at the gold and jet buttons on the sleeve, inches from Harry’s hand, the way the cut of the jacket brought attention to the squareness of his shoulders and drew the eye to the clean line of Harry’s jaw, Draco was sure that if the uniform had not been modeled on Potter himself, at very least the designer had been referencing a full-body picture of him while creating it. Merlin, the trousers were pandering, plain and simple. Draco redirected his attention to the safety of the bridge of Potter’s glasses.

“Auror Potter,” He said with the smallest inclination of his head, “I’m surprised this warranted your time.”

“I’m a bit of a Boggart expert, I guess,” Harry said with a smile Draco didn’t find convincing, “Are you doing alright?” Out of nowhere, as though that was just the sort of question you could ask someone.

“Yes, of course I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” Draco said, voice clipped, “It’s upstairs. Come on, before Weasley erupts with impatience.” Draco led the way up to the third-floor sitting room. Potter and Weasley, shoulder to shoulder, followed him up the constricted flights of stairs, which were darker and steeper than they had been six months ago, but at least had not deteriorated since he’d gone down them two minutes earlier. That was the most he could ask for these days. Even so, he couldn’t deny that there was an unsavory feeling to the air in the Manor, growing more oppressive as they climbed into the private rooms that only family and intimate friends had ever seen, where Draco spent most of his time. It was prickling against his skin, dancing on his nerves. Draco could feel Weasley bristling behind him. When he glanced backwards, Weasley looked a little nauseous, but if Harry noticed anything wrong, it didn’t show on his face.

Draco stopped a few feet away from the bolted sitting room door and gestured towards it. “It’s in there,” He said, keeping his voice level, though the thought of so much as opening the door, even with two Aurors at his back, filled him with dread, “It’s in the piano, actually. If I could trouble you not to damage it—it’s an antique, you see. Priceless.”

Under his breath but loud enough that Draco could still hear, Weasley said, “Sounds like he cares more about the bloody piano than he cared about anybody who went to school with us.”

“Do it without damaging the room and I’ll take any Muggle-born witch or wizard who accepts my invitation out for dinner in a public location and give them a personal apology. If you find anyone who’s interested, I’ll be shocked. Even more shocked than I will be if you two manage to deal with the Boggart without causing property damage.” Weasley looked venomous and ready to retort, but Potter grabbed his shoulder.

“I might be able to find someone to take you up on that,” Harry said with his familiar brand of firm, obnoxious confidence, “Come on, Ron.”

Draco watched, silent and growing queasy, as Weasley and Potter walked to the sitting room door. "Alohomora," Weasley said, jabbing his wand at the handle, and the latch clicked open. Draco leaned back against the wall of the corridor, feigning disinterest as he looked back towards the stairs, but acutely aware of the two Aurors strolling through the door in his peripheral vision. "Bloody hell, look at that thing," Weasley said, sounding disgusted, and at first Draco was sure the Boggart had revealed itself, until he continued, "What kind of person owns a gold piano?" Harry, at least, only chuckled. "Right, let's just get this over with," Weasley said, "Bestiae revelio." The pause that followed stagnated into uncomfortable silence. "You think he was trying to trick us, somehow?" Weasley asked, but there was a tension in his voice that sounded like uncertainty. The air was alive and hungry for heat. Draco closed his eyes and gripped tight to his wand.

"I dunno," Potter answered, "It feels like there's maybe something here."

"'Feels like there's maybe something here'?" Weasley echoed, "This whole place is a nightmare. I was more asking if you thought this was a trap or something. It feels horrible here. There's got to be something wrong with--ah!" Draco's heart squeezed tight as a fist in his chest.

"Impedimenta!" Harry shouted, and Draco saw the blaze of light through his eyelids.

"Stupefy. Stupefy! That's not mine, Harry. Protego!"

"I know!" There was a frantic pitch to Harry's voice, "Expecto Patronum!" Like sunlight breaking through clouds, a blessed glow radiated out from the sitting room, bringing warmth and calm with it. Draco's heart slid back into place in his chest, and from the other room, Weasley gave an audible sigh.

"Fucking hell, what was that thing?"

"I've got no idea. Maybe someone back at the office will know. It's gone for now, anyway."

"I dunno, Harry," Weasley said, sounding dubious, "That's the sort of thing you'd hear about, isn't it? I hope it's not something new." Draco opened his eyes as Weasley and Potter, both looking a little greyer than they had a few moments ago, walked out of the sitting room. Weasley looked stunned: Potter, perplexed.

"So, it's gone for now," Harry said when no one else spoke, "We're not sure what it was, though. It definitely wasn't a Boggart." That much Draco had gathered from the conversation he'd overheard.

"Gone 'for now'? Gone where?" He asked with his best play at haughty cool.

"Through the floorboards. Sort of burst apart when Harry's Patronus charged it, and trickled away like smoke," Weasley said.

"That's very comforting, thank you," Draco said, wanting to scream, wanting even more to cry because it sounded as though he was being told an unidentified dark creature that wasn't a Boggart was on the loose somewhere in his house, "You're saying you don't know what it is, or where it's gone, why it's here or how to get rid of it. That's perfect. Thank you very much for your service."

Weasley puffed up like an angry cat, but Harry cut in before he got a chance to make a retort, "Don't worry, we're going to look into it. Do you have anywhere else you can stay?" For one moment, Draco imagined admitting to Pansy he was desperate enough to need to sleep on the couch in her studio apartment in Diagon Alley.

"Are there any other options?" He asked after a second.

"Well... Do you know the Patronus charm?" Harry said slowly, "That seemed to drive it off right away."

"He sent an owl when he thought it was a Boggart!" Weasley said, "He definitely can't cast a Patronus charm."

It had been a while since Draco had felt a nice, purging wash of loathing directed at someone other than himself. He hated being looked down on. He hated it even more when the derision was well-founded. His smile and voice were still fixed to the gold standard of civility, "I'm afraid I never mastered it, no." At least that particular charm was not part of the Hogwarts curriculum. He could feel a little less foolish for not having learned it.

"That's okay. Do you want me to teach you?" Potter asked, and for all the world his smile looked legitimate. Weasley and Potter then proceeded to get into a discussion, which devolved quickly into an argument, right there in the corridor.

“You want me to leave you here, in Malfoy Manor, with Malfoy, alone? You’re being an idiot.”

“Malfoy’s not going to hurt me, Ron. If he wanted to, this would be a really stupid way to do it, anyway.”

“Yeah? You’re sure about that? He wanted you dead for years. He acts like something other than scum one time and—”

“He’s right there.”

“So? He knows what he did. He isn’t a complete sack of dragon bollocks one time and you just forget all the other stuff he did?”

“I haven’t forgotten. But his mum lied to Voldemort for me. To his face.”

“So what? This is _Malfoy_, not his mum.”

“I’m not afraid of Malfoy. I think he’s sorry. I think he learned better. We already talked about this ages ago.”

“We already talked? We already—” Weasley spluttered, looking more like a sunburnt carrot by the minute, “We didn’t agree on anything! But even if you’re right, even if he is harmless, which I don’t believe for a second, then you’re still asking to hang around a house with an unidentified monster and a wizard who can’t even cope with a Boggart!”

“Draco’s a decent dueler,” Harry said, looking suddenly uncomfortable in his tight dragonhide trousers and sleek coat and leather dueling gloves, scratching at his ear, “And anyway, err... Look, Ron, it’s alright. I’ll be fine. I want to do it. If things get really bad, I can just apparate us. It’ll be fine.”

It wasn’t that Draco had always had a deep, exasperating thirst for Harry’s attention. It wasn’t that he’d been seethingly jealous of the members of Potter’s defensive magic classes fifth year. It wasn’t that Draco was now living in terror of whatever was haunting the halls of his own home, or that he sometimes was burning up for contact with the outside world and other times so sick to death at the thought of it that he shut all the curtains in his room and let himself slip into a blissful, forgetful nothing. It wasn’t even that Harry’s thighs looked delicious in those trousers and it had been months since Draco had gotten to leech on anyone. The comfortable reason for agreeing to Potter’s plan was that he was curious to see if a fountain of blood would erupt from Weasley’s ears if he got angrier. “I wouldn’t want to impose, of course,” He said silkily, “But if you could spare the time, I would appreciate the lesson.”

Weasley shot him a venomous look, eyes narrowed in suspicion, and Draco really felt the calm, sweet smile he gave in response. Potter ignored both. “Yeah, it’s no trouble,” And then, “Come on, Ron. It shouldn’t take more than a few hours. Someone should keep an eye open around here to see if anything else happens, anyway. Go ask around the office. I think someone should know something.”

“I could ask Hermione,” Weasley said, still not looking away from Draco, “If anyone’s heard about something like this, I bet it would be her.”

“And she’d have an idea of where to start researching, even if she hasn’t,” Potter pointed out, and finally Weasley looked away from Draco and towards Harry.

“You sure about this?”

“Positive,” Harry said, and he actually did sound it, giving Weasley another reassuring smile, “Look, just keep me updated, okay? It’s no good both of us staying here, but one of us should stick around in case it comes back again.” Weasley wouldn’t think it too great a loss if Draco was eaten up by some dark creature, Draco was sure, but he didn’t say as much. He only gave Draco one last glare, then nodded.

“Okay, then.”

They made their way back down to the ground floor and into the Manor’s great hall. A tortoiseshell box of Floo Powder sat on the mantle, ready for just such an occasion, and Draco gestured at it. “Help yourself,” He said blandly, and Weasley gave him a look like he’d just called him a pejorative name. He probably didn’t enjoy being given permission to do something by Draco—probably wanted to prove he didn’t need it. Still, Weasley did step forward, pop open the lid of the box, and grab a fistful of powder.

“You sure you’re alright Harry?” He asked, looking back from the fireplace as he approached it.

“Absolutely. Go on, Ron,” Harry urged with a touch of exasperation this time, and Weasley frowned, but stepped over the grate.

He threw the powder down, said, “Ronald Weasley for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement,” and was whisked away in a burst of green flames.


	3. Chapter 3

There was a long moment of still after Weasley disappeared from the fireplace. Draco stood, watching the green flames flicker and die, very aware of Harry standing a couple yards away, watching him. When he looked up to meet his gaze, Harry had a quizzical expression on his face, and a little furrow between his brows. “Do you want someone to explain the Floo Network to you?” Draco asked with a saccharine smile, taking refuge in the familiarity of the rivalry he’d one shared with Harry. Except this time, instead of making some sharp retort or glowering back at him, Potter only gave a snort of laughter and shook his head.

“No, it’s not that. It’s just… was Ron right?” He asked. Draco stared back blankly.

“The balance of probability is never in his favor,” He said, “But I don’t know what you’re referring to, specifically.”

“About the house,” Harry said, nodding at the sad curtains and the windows, which had become increasingly opaque, week by week, “Is there really something the matter with it?” It would have been a relief that someone, at least, didn’t think anything of all the Manor’s glaring defects if it hadn’t been such a horrible thought that this is what Potter believed it was meant to look like. After weeks of staring at it and despairing over it, watching it grow worse and worse, as though it was rotting around him, with Mimsy in a tizzy no matter how many times he told her he didn’t think the state of the house was a statement on her work ethic. Considering what his parents would say if they saw it now, what his father would say—and maybe that was even optimistic, since his father hadn’t said a word to anyone since shortly after his trial. It had become an unbearable place, yet somehow also the only place Draco could bear to be, even though it seemed intent on driving him out with Shades and Vampiric Moths and now some unnamed horror… Draco gave a high, humorless laugh; a manic substitute for tears.

“Oh no, Potter, of course not!” He drawled, “I like lumps under my carpet and dull floors and windows I can barely see out of. It’s always been my deepest desire to live in a house that looks like it’s been abandoned for twenty years and refuses to get warm. You thought I wanted to live somewhere nice? As soon as I got the chance, after all the work my mother did after the war to make the place decent again, I really put my back into turning it miserable.” Draco wanted Harry to lose his temper with him. To call him a prat or go bitter and broody. Like that would set the world to rights. But so much had changed since they had left school. Harry had gotten more patient with maturity, and maybe Draco had become more transparent. Either way, once again Potter didn’t have a comeback.

Instead he only nodded, looked around the Manor’s dingy great room, then back at him and said, “I’m sorry, Draco.” Draco was stunned. 

“You’re sorry?” He echoed, “Why? For what?”

“For whatever’s going on with your house. It’s got to be frustrating for you, is all.” That was not at all the reaction Draco was expecting.

“Yes…” He said haltingly, looking away from Harry. At the fireplace, at the gardens, anywhere but at him, at an utter loss for words. He had no guidelines to interact with Harry in this context. Potter finally cleared his throat and rumpled up his hair.

“Right, so… Let’s get started with the lesson then, okay? Sooner we get it done, sooner it’s off your mind. I’d sort of like to do it in the house, so I could keep an eye out for that thing,” Harry said, and Draco, with effort, managed not to cast a nervous glance over his shoulder. Harry seemed to guess at his apprehension anyway, “But, err… maybe it would be easier for you if we started off outside? Since you don’t seem very happy with your house right now.”

“Yes, alright, fine,” Draco said, crossing his arms over his chest and looking behind him at last, this time only to see the bubbling fountain and overgrown rosebuds outside. Of all the areas of the estate, the gardens and the grounds were easily the least affected—their glory dimmed, but most of that attributable to simple neglect. He hadn’t been in a mood to do any gardening himself for a long time. They walked out a side door in the corridor between the ground-floor sitting room and the morning room—unused since his mother had left—and onto a cobbled courtyard. Two statues of black and white ribboned marble stood at its center, shaped so excellently by a goblin artist that they could have been people in paint and costume: a witch and wizard, both beautiful, captured in the act of circling each other in a formal dance, their stone faces implacably calm.

“Wow, I hadn’t seen these the last time I was here,” Potter said, making some sort of stab at brightness, “Who are they, Malfoy? Relatives of yours?”

“Yes,” Draco said, taking a few steps forward to singe a tendril of ivy that was climbing out of its bed, tickling the feet of the wizard, “Fiachra and Quirinus Malfoy. My great-great-great-great grandparents, or something. They were responsible for the last major renovation of Malfoy Manor and its grounds, though, of course, my other ancestors have done this and that to it since then. Their grandchildren commissioned these statues of them. They work in a defensive capacity, as well. I’m rather fond of the piece.”

“Was it an unhappy marriage or something?” Potter asked, and Draco stared at him, perplexed. 

“Sorry?”

“Why’ve they got their wands drawn on each other?” Potter asked, and Draco laughed outright.

“They’re not dueling, Potter,” He said, chortling, “They’re dancing. Haven’t you ever been to a proper ball?”

“I’ve been to the Yule Ball,” Harry said stoutly, wrinkling his nose, “What? Do you go to them every year or something?” 

“I used to go to a few every summer,” Draco mused, meandering around the perimeter of the courtyard to scorch a few weeds climbing up the low hedges, “But no, not anymore. Not since the war. You can’t tell me you don’t get invitations. You must be swimming in them.”

Harry shrugged, trailing Draco around the statues at a distance, looking out over the deep green of the garden. It should have been bright in all seasons, but Draco had failed there as a steward. At least Potter didn’t have a basis for comparison, and it did still look alright. Just freer. Wilder. “If I have, I haven’t opened them,” He said, “People I don’t know send me letters all the time. I got sick of reading them ages ago. I just chuck them now. I don’t want to become the new Gilderoy Lockhart.” It was at once so absurd and so like Potter to throw out invitations to the parties of influential people that Draco laughed. A real laugh, and not even one that came at too high a cost for Harry. That had to be a sign of just how desperate he was for human contact. Potter just grinned back at him, though, before nodding to a spot of the empty courtyard. “That seems like a decent place. Let’s get started.”

They walked a few dozen feet to the open space, and Draco turned to look at Harry, arching one pale eyebrow. He had no intention of showing Potter that he was curious about how he’d conducted his defense against the dark arts lessons. “Okay. We don’t have to bother with wands for a minute,” Potter said, back seeming a bit straighter, shoulders set with a confident firmness that Draco hadn’t noticed a moment ago. “It’s not like the incantation or the wand movement is tricky at all. The hard part is—I know there’s not a Dementor in your house, but you know how Dementors make you feel?” Draco nodded. As much as he’d given Harry hell for his reaction to the Dementors their third year, he hadn’t been immune then, any more than he’d been spared when they drew close to Voldemort, trailing him and his followers like perverse shadows. “How do they make you feel, then?”

“Cold and empty, like they do everyone else,” Draco said with as bland a tone as he could muster.

“Hopeless?” Potter offered.

“Yes,” Draco said, “Doomed.” It was too close to how he had been feeling recently. Like nothing good awaited him in life.

“Okay. So, what you have to do is think of something that makes you feel safe and happy. Something that reminds you of how good life is, and how good it will be in the future. Something that fills you with hope or love or joy. And the stronger the thought is that you can summon up, and the better you can focus on it and let it warm you up, the stronger your Patronus will be. It will be easier now than it will be when you actually need it, since you’ll probably been scared then, but the more you practice finding that thought or memory and focusing on it, the easier it will get. So, just take a minute and try to find the strongest happy thought you can,” Harry said. Draco stared at him, thoughts churning for five silent seconds. When Harry just looked back at him, Draco finally opened his mouth.

“You mean to tell me,” He began slowly, “It really is that touchy-feely? I’ve read books that mention the charm, of course, but I had no idea that was all true. I thought it was just sentimentality around a romantic charm, or some sort of thought exercise or something.”

“I mean, it is a sort of thought exercise, I guess,” Potter said, “But it’s what you need to cast the spell. Go on, Malfoy, stop gaping at me. Just think of something really good and strong you can hold onto. I think about how much I love Ron and Hermione, or how pleased I was when I found out I’d got into Hogwarts, or holding my godson for the first time and knowing that he’d have a loving family, and that he’d never have to be afraid of Voldemort.” Draco cringed and Harry sighed and added with surprising gentleness, “Just give it a try, alright? It’s not so hard.” Then he was quiet, leaving Draco alone with a monumental task. ‘Not so hard’ his arse.

Draco didn’t have friends he loved to conjure up in his mind. He had fair-weather friends who came and went as it benefited them, as he would expect them to: allies against common enemies, knots in a net of contacts. He loved his parents, but he couldn’t think about them now without anxiety and guilt, bitterness and uncertainty. They loved each other, but love was all they had. Affection had always been stilted, at best. Draco could think of a time he’d felt a gut-wrenching moment of relief—when neither he nor his parents had been sentenced to Azkaban at their trial—but he hadn’t felt safe or happy then. More like crying. Quidditch victories—not a one against Potter, even—felt hollow and petty now. He’d been expecting his Hogwarts letter for years when it came. There were no baby-holding revelations in his life. His first kiss, with Pansy, had left him feeling nothing but a crawling discomfort. All his best school memories centered around humiliating Harry, which was probably too cruel to be used to fuel this sort of magic. There had been holidays to the French Riviera or to ski in the Alps, or flying over the vast, wind-bitten tundra of the Russian steppe. But all of that had been expected, and only comfortable or nice or empty, physical bliss. A good fly would probably only do him as well as a thorough fucking, and he didn’t think either would cut it.

He felt like he was standing there a very long time. He must have been, because Harry made eye contact with him. “Think of something?” He asked, and Draco had to shake his head.

“No… Not yet.”

“Okay… Well, do you have a good imagination? Could you tell yourself you’re going to banish the thing in your house, and it’s going to feel fantastic? You’ll have your home back. You’ll feel safe and powerful. It’ll be brilliant.” Harry was talking like a particularly enthusiastic quidditch captain—one who believed in the power of positive thinking.

Draco snorted, “I don’t think acknowledging the existence of the monster in my house is going to help.”

“It was just an idea. Okay. Your mum loves you a whole lot. And you love her, right?” Draco had no idea where this was going. 

“Yes,” He agreed tentatively, “What of it?”

“Do you have any childhood memories with her you really treasure? Bedtime stories, walks together, cooking together, anything like that?” And once again Draco had to laugh, because Potter certainly had no idea how a proper wizarding house was run. 

“She’s my mother, Potter,” He said, when Harry did nothing but look at him in confusion, “Not my governess or my nursemaid. She was busy running the household and talking to people. She had more important things to do than run around after me, feeding and washing a baby. Can you imagine?” But clearly Harry could imagine, because something that looked an awful lot like pity was coming over his face. “Don’t look at me like that,” Draco snapped, “It’s the way things work for traditional pureblood families. It’s better for everyone involved.” Potter still looked like someone had dumped a bucket of water over his head. It was a moment before he gathered himself and nodded. 

“Right. Okay. Have you ever been in love?”

“Heavens, no!” Draco spluttered, feeling his ears go pink. Infatuated? Obsessed? Tangled up in lust and jealous passion? Yes. But in love? That was something else entirely.

It was Harry’s turn to laugh. “Alright, alright! Sorry. Something with your family, then. You can’t tell me you’ve never been happy. I don’t believe that.”

“Of course, I have been. I’ve been perfectly satisfied, but—” 

“This isn’t about satisfaction, Malfoy,” Harry said with sudden firmness, “It’s not about gratitude or having enough. It’s about being so filled up with warmth that it doesn’t even matter if the Dementors take some, because you’re overflowing with it. Because it keeps welling up from that thought inside you, driving out anything bad you could possibly feel. I’m talking about joy, or really deep, lasting happiness. Being so giddy with love or excitement that everything in the world feels excellent and beautiful. Or so secure and wrapped up in affection that it feels like nothing could ever touch you.” He was mad. Draco had always had a suspicion, but Potter was actually mad. 

“What is this tosh you’re spouting?” He asked with the clearest possible enunciation, “That’s not what life is like at all, Potter. That’s not how it is for people. If it was, everyone would be skipping along the streets with pockets full of wildflowers, singing at the top of their lungs.”

“I’ve felt that way,” said Harry, “And Ron and Hermione. Lupin. Fred and George. Dumbledore. McGonagall. Snape, too. And I know they all have, because they’ve produced Patronuses, and that’s what you have to draw on to do that.”

“Well, bully for the lot of you,” Draco said, tried to sneer, “I’m glad all of you got to enjoy a dive into fairyland.” He couldn’t make it come out right, though, because Harry was looking at him with his green eyes gone soft, and a faint frown on his lips. It made Draco want to hex him—he hated being pitied—or maybe just cry with frustration. “Never mind,” Draco said, turning away from Harry and starting back towards the house, “This is pointless. Let’s just—” He stopped dead when Harry grabbed his elbow. It struck Draco in an awful flash, with Harry’s fingers pressed firm into his inner arm, warm even through the fabric, that he could not remember the last time he had been touched, even for something so casual as a handshake. His stomach twisted a little as he delicately extricated his arm from Harry’s grip. 

“Wait, Malfoy,” Harry said, expression still too tender for comfort, “I wasn’t trying to put you down, or anything. I was just saying, it’s not that unusual: Luna Lovegood. Both my parents. Umbridge, and she was a horrible toad.” 

“If this is your way of comforting me, Potter, you’re doing a rotten job of it,” Draco said, curling his lip. But he didn’t move away. Harry heaved a great breath. 

“What I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry it’s so hard for you to think of a moment when you were truly happy. There was a time when I wouldn’t have been able to either and it was horrible. So, I’m sorry that’s how things are for you right now. It’s the worst.” 

“Stop pitying me Potter, or—”

“I’m not pitying you—”

“I swear I’ll dismiss you from the—” He spoke louder, trying to drown out Harry, but Harry raised his voice, too.

“It’s called empathy, Malfoy. Maybe—”

“—from the grounds and then hex—” 

“—if you’d heard of it you wouldn’t—” They were shouting at each other, struggling not to stumble over words in the jumble. 

“—you for trespassing!”

“—be so miserable!”

Draco’s face felt bright and hot; his heart alive with rigorous indignation. Harry was breathing hard, eyes bright behind his glasses. If he wasn’t angry, at least he was frustrated, and that was something Draco liked a hand and a foot over pity. He smiled, sharp and slender, and felt like himself for the first time in a long time. 

“Do you like being sad and bitter, is that what it is?” Harry asked, holding Draco’s gaze like a bear trap with his own.

“I like winding you up,” Draco said, smoothing back his silver hair, freshly clean under his fingers for the first time in a week. 

“By being unhappy?”

“Not specifically,” Draco said, “Though I never would have guessed that would do the trick.”

“You’d be surprised,” Harry said, and finally looked away from Draco. That was enough to puncture his rage but left him buzzing still with a dulled sort of electricity. He didn’t know what to say to that. Potter was confounding without even seeming to try. Harry took another deep, slow breath, and then nodded towards the hedges. “Come on. We’re not getting anywhere right now. Want to show me around the gardens for a bit? I’d like a walk.” And for reasons Draco didn’t entirely understand, that didn’t sound like the worst thing in the world.


	4. Chapter 4

They started out around the cobbled paths bordered by low hedges and bushes, mostly not in season, rather weedy and in need of pruning, but still lush and lively. Draco pointed out several beds containing St. Gertrude’s Butterfly Bushes, which were rustling too much to be muggle plants, considering how little wind there was. “At one point, they were nearly extinct,” He said, “Almost every one grown today is a descendent of grafts donated by the Estate.”

“They’re pretty,” Harry said, touching a fluttering blue-tinged leaf, “Are they useful for anything?”

“Only for that—being pretty,” Draco said, “But that’s more than what can be said of a lot of things.”

“I wasn’t judging. I like pretty things, too,” Harry said, and Draco quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Is that so? I never had you pegged for an esthete, Potter.”

“As a—what was that? Sorry?”

“Oh, never mind,” Draco said, swallowing down a smile, “Do you want to see the water gardens? I haven’t been that way in months. They’re a little bit of a walk.”

“Yeah, sure. But I want to know what you said. What did you call me?”

“A true intellectual, as usual. Use context clues if you don’t know the word. Don’t they teach vocabulary at muggle schools?”

“Are you prickly with everyone, or do I bring it out of you?” Harry asked. And there Potter went again, ducking expectations. Draco had baited him, and Harry hadn’t bitten. Admittedly, it had only been halfhearted on Draco’s part, but he was used to Potter leaping on any chance to defend himself. It was like Potter had decided he wasn’t worth it. Or maybe it wasn’t that, because Potter was here, after all, strolling through the gardens alongside him and making an attempt at conversation. Maybe it had just stopped bothering him so much. Or maybe it was that Harry’s view of Draco had changed. Pity or empathy, whatever it was. Starved of companionship as Draco was, Potter was making it difficult to keep up appearances.

“It’s my personality,” Draco said, following a path that wove down the hill on which the Manor stood, towards the orchards full of apple and pear trees, barren this time of year, and the less structured gardens beyond.

“That’s a relief,” Harry said with a grin that made Draco’s chest ache to look at, “I thought maybe you still didn’t like me.” Draco couldn’t say anything to that. He let his eyes fall down towards the decaying leaf litter, soft beneath their feet, and continued down the sloping path that led into the edge of the forest that populated the valley. 

The air had a hearty wetness to it—dirt and verdant life—and Draco breathed it in. The stagnant air of the house still felt stuck in his lungs. He cleared his throat, brushing out the cobwebs. Harry kept kicking at the leaves as they walked. His boots were looking dirtier by the second. No wonder Potter was almost always a mess: even if he started out in something fresh-pressed, clean and perfectly tailored, he couldn’t leave it be. Anything in proximity to Potter, he mussed. Draco shot a hard look at Harry’s boots and suppressed the urge to shoot a cleaning charm at them. Eventually they came to a pond tucked into a cleft of the valley, with a rocky shore and a slow brook feeding it. Algae grew green on the pebbles at the bottom of the pond, and the still places furthest from the brook’s mouth were choked with waterlilies. It certainly needed some looking-after. But the Silver-Leaf Willows at its bank still draped their trailing branches into the water, and great, pearly fish swam languorously in the depths. Potter looked… impressed. Which said more about him than the state of the water gardens, Draco was sure.

“Wow, this place is nice, isn’t it?” Harry said, strolling down onto the shore to peer more closely at the fish, “What are these?”

“A variety of koi. Imported from Japan, I believe. I don’t know, really, they’re at least thirty years old,” Draco said, “It really isn’t that nice, though. The fountain isn’t even working.”

“Why not? What’s wrong with it?”

“Couldn’t tell you,” Draco drawled, flicking his wand threateningly at a Welsh Pixie who was approaching with too much enthusiasm to be trusted, “The last time I was here it was working fine.” But that had been nearly a year ago. And before Draco could even mull over just how pathetic his guardianship of his family’s property was, Potter was on his arse on the wet rocks, tugging off his boots. “What _are _you doing?” He asked, mouth open in earnest dismay as Harry pulled off his socks, stood up, and cast a shield charm on his trousers.

“You don’t mind, do you?” Harry said, though he’d already walked forward and was ankle-deep in the water, “Just thought I’d take a look, since I’m here. Where is it? Right in the middle?”

“You’re an Auror, not a groundskeeper,” Draco said, but apparently Harry didn’t care about that any more than he did getting wet feet or risking a fall on the slick rocks. He just kept wading deeper.

“I mean, I can’t promise I’ll fix it,” He said over his shoulder. Knee-deep in water. Thigh-deep in water. The opalescent fish diverted their courses to avoid Harry’s legs without a ripple. Trapped on the shore, Draco crossed his arms and watched. Potter had always been a meddler. Even when it came to other people’s fountains, it seemed he couldn’t help himself. Harry stopped when he reached the deepest part of the pond. Water was lapping at the hem of his fine red jacket, and Draco was sure he could detect a shiver in his voice. “About here?” Harry called, and Draco nodded.

“About.”

Harry began slowly moving around the center of the pond with an odd, shuffling gait, arms held out for balance. After about a minute, Draco got bored of watching Harry muck about and turned away to meander up to the stream instead. A couple late-season dragonflies danced above the water, and Draco squatted down to watch the spill of the water over the rocks. It might not have been well-manicured anymore, but at least it was peaceful and pretty. Draco took another deep breath of wild air and closed his eyes. Wind played across his face—his lips, his brow, his eyelids—and he let his shoulders relax. Behind him, Harry made a satisfied sound. Then, “Scourgify!” The pond made a noise like an enormous belch, and with the force of a geyser, a solid shaft of water erupted from it, catching Harry’s front and sending him toppling backwards into the pond. Potter shot up, drenched and spluttering, as water rained down around him, and Draco didn’t even _want _to help himself. Draco crowed with laughter as Harry coughed and dashed water from his eyes, then pointed at the fountain which had gentled into a cascade and declared, “Fixed it!” Only a second later, he clutched at his nose, “Damn, dropped my glasses.” Draco was nearly sobbing with mirth as Harry dunked himself back under the water to retrieve his glasses.

Which was how they ended up in Malfoy Manor’s main hall fifteen minutes later with Harry shirtless and draped in one of Draco’s bathrobes, sitting in the chair closest to the fire.


	5. Chapter 5

Draco had never seen Mimsy looking more frigid than when she poured tea for Harry; shooting Draco a questioning look before retreating quickly into the hall. Harry’s gaze followed her with evident concern. Draco sighed. “She used to serve the Lestrange family,” He said with a lazy wave of his hand, “So she holds a bit of a grudge against Aurors in general, and you in particular. You and your kind killed Auntie Bellatrix and Uncle Rodolphus, you see.” Harry opened his mouth, looking more than a little defensive, but Draco cut him off, “Not that I _blame_ you. Good riddance, obviously. But they were her family. Understandable that she’s still protective. And I’m sure she’s heard only terrible things about you.” Harry looked troubled, and Draco hid a smile in his cup of tea. All the better that he could pry his eyes away from Harry. Draco had heard nothing of the Aurors’ physical training regimen, but someone must have been prodding Harry into doing something strenuous, because people had to work to get chests that looked like that. 

“So. How have you been doing?” Harry asked, and Draco shot him a reproachful look through the waft of steam from his cup. There Potter went again, asking questions where he shouldn’t, with answers that didn’t warrant being given.

“I’ve already told you I’m alright,” He said shortly, looking pointedly away into the fire, “What more do you want from me?” And that should have been the end of it. But Potter could never just let well enough be; it was what had thrown him into danger, and into the spotlight, so often at school.

“I dunno,” Harry said, “The truth.”

Draco closed his eyes, torn between frustration and emotional exhaustion. Why would Potter ask for the truth? No one _actually _wanted the truth—not when it came to things like that. “You can’t just let it alone, can you? Or come to your own conclusions, at least? How do you _think _I’ve been doing? I can count the people I’ve had a social call with in the last year on one hand. I can’t go to a public place unaccosted. My father is in poor health. I can’t think of anything useful to do. I can’t take care of my own family’s bloody house, and now it’s _infested_ with something and I—” Scalding hot tea splashed onto his thumb, and Draco looked down at his cup of tea. His hand was shaking. He bowed his head—away from the fire, away from Harry’s probing gaze—drawing inward, forcing his voice to steady and his hand to still. His thumb was still burning. His eyes burned more. At a flicker of movement before him, Draco looked up. Mimsy, clutching Harry’s freshly washed and dried shirt in her hands, crossed the room to hand it to Harry with a look of utmost suspicion in her enormous eyes, before turning with far more tenderness towards him.

“Is Master Malfoy wanting anything? Mimsy could be making a trifle for him. Or perhaps a pigeon pie?” She said, pointedly putting her back to Harry.

“No, that’s quite alright, Mimsy, thank you,” Draco said, scrubbing a hand over his brow and eyes, recomposing himself. The elf didn’t look pleased with that response, but she bobbed a quick curtsey nonetheless, and exited back out into the hall. When Draco looked back at Harry, he was buttoning up his shirt. “It’s been difficult. But time goes on,” Draco said at last.

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, which Draco didn’t want to hear. But there was a charming note of earnestness in his voice, like so much about Harry.

“I don’t need your sympathy,” Draco said, setting aside his tea and crossing his arms over his chest, “All I need from you is to exterminate the monster in the house.”

“Hermione and Ron are on it, I’m sure of it,” Harry said, “There’s nothing much I can do unless it comes back, until we know what it is, I mean. Until then… Well, it left that room upstairs. I figure it’s as safe as any other room in the house.” As he had no clue where Harry was going with this, suspicion was the only rational response. He stared at Harry, appraising him.

“Yes, I suppose. So?”

“So… Want to teach me some ‘proper dancing’?” And something about the thought of getting to see Potter making a fool of himself at something Draco knew well did sound almost fun.

“Knowing you, Potter, you’ll be unteachable. But I can try.”


	6. Chapter 6

“I suppose we should have some music, then,” Draco said, staring at the piano with some mistrust. There was nothing quite like the thought of your parents’ dead bodies crammed into the frame of an instrument to make it unappealing to play. But the room didn’t have the same menacing chill that it had suffered with the other day, and Harry was watching him with thrilling curiosity, so Draco seated himself at the bench, fingers stroking the conditioned ivory. It was almost as warm as a living being, itself. He looked at book on the piano’s music rack and cleared his throat, “Léandrés’s _Vol des __Étoiles_.” Obediently, the music book opened to the correct page. “You won’t be getting my best performance,” Draco said, eyes fixed on the first stanza, “It’s been a while since I’ve practiced.”

“I’m not a tough audience,” Harry said, “And I’ve never played an instrument, so you’ve got that on me. Let’s hear it, Draco.”

So Draco started playing. Once the piece, long as it was, had been second nature to him; he could have played it blindfolded, or while keeping up a conversation. Now, even playing it more slowly, enunciating the rhythm so that it would be easy to dance to, it took concentration. Still, the piano itself remained lovely as ever. The notes flowed rich and clear from its body and filled the room up with the light, sweet song. Once he’d begun, it came more easily, too. His fingers remembered most of the old movements, and within a minute, the piano was almost playing itself. And then a minute later it was playing itself, obeying his modifications to the written piece, and Draco removed his hands from the keys “There we are,” Draco said, smiling at the look of surprise on Harry’s face as he stood from the bench, “The piece is a long one, and there are three more of Léandrés’s works for it to continue on with if it finishes. That should be enough to give you a basic grounding, I hope. If we were being old-fashioned, we’d be using each other’s wands. If we were being utterly medieval, we’d be using our own wands—”

“Why’s that?” Harry asked. He’d already drawn his wand, clearly in preparation to imitate the statues in the garden exactly.

“Holding your own wand implies you think you might have to use it,” Draco explained, “Warring clans or families. All that rot, before we handled disputes in court for the most part. Holding your partner’s wand is—well, it’s not chivalrous, exactly, but… Give me your wand.” Harry handed it over without hesitation, clearly nonplussed, apparently unconcerned. That was not at all the reaction Draco had been expecting. Draco gave it a quick flick in the air, feeling the magic of the wand—eager and unfamiliar, brash—in his hand, and looking back at Potter. When there was no change in his expression, Draco went so far as to send a burst of blue sparks gushing from it. But Harry was still just standing there, looking confused.

“What are you doing?”

“You don’t care? You don’t _want _it?” Draco asked, staring at Harry, who was apparently _just fine_ standing there while someone else used his wand.

“What are you talking about? I don’t have to ‘want’ it, it’s right there. I mean, you’re going to give it back to me when you’re done, aren’t you?” And that was exactly the sort of attitude he should have known Harry would have. Because out of all the wizards in the country, only Harry Potter didn’t feel a touch of anxiety when someone else was holding his wand.

“Of course I am. That wasn’t the point,” Draco said, holding the wand out to Harry, who wasn’t over-quick in taking it back, “It doesn’t make you feel vulnerable, not to have it with you? It doesn’t make your skin crawl?”

“No,” Harry said blankly, and then, “I trust you.” Draco stared at him. The argument that Potter had used on Weasley to coax him into leaving was that he wasn’t _afraid _of Draco. That Draco wasn’t a threat. That sentiment was a world’s difference from trusting him. But Potter was saying it with a tone he might have used to announce the time. Leave it to Potter to be positively vexing in any situation—which wasn’t to say that he didn’t trust Harry. Potter was always true to form. Draco didn’t have to extend any faith to trust Potter—Potter was simply trustworthy. The same couldn’t be said of himself. He floundered in silence for a moment, feeling his heart coiling around his stomach, before sniffing and looking away.

“I don’t know on what foundation you’ve built that trust, but let’s just say that most people are left feeling vulnerable when someone else is holding their wand. That used to be a valuable demonstration of... of trust, I suppose. But it’s too invasive for modern tastes. Now, except in the most formal of situations, dancers don’t have to trade wands. Sometimes married couples do. It’s intimate,” Draco said, and his eyes fell to the holly wand in his hand, still there, its magic tingling against his palm. Feeling his face grow a shade warmer, he held Harry’s wand out, and Harry took it, sliding it back into its dueling holster.

“Okay, we don’t have to be really traditional, if you don’t want to. What do we do, then?” Trying to ignore the sensory memory of Harry’s wand in his hand, and that warm jolt of realizing for how long he’d been holding it, Draco threw himself into more comfortable thoughts about choreography.

“It’s not so difficult. A basic quadrilatère is composed of four sets, each set having four movements, each movement taking four beats. So, the beat of the music sets the pace, obviously. I’ll demonstrate once on my own, and then we can do it together,” Draco said, trying to ignore the fact that a lost look was already starting to overcome Harry’s face, “We’d begin with the lead’s right hand on the partner’s left shoulder blade, partner’s left hand on the lead’s right shoulder, holding hands at shoulder level with the free hands. I’ll pretend as though I’m leading, with an invisible partner, so you can practice leading. Understood?”

“Right,” said Harry, though nothing about his tone of voice inspired confidence. But then, maybe Potter was a visual learner. Draco pressed on, more to give himself something to focus on than anything else. Right arm curled around an imaginary partner, left hand to the side, Draco glanced at Harry.

“You can hear the beat, can’t you? Four beats to one movement, so it’s quite leisurely. Two beats for the actual movement, two for coming to rest, as a general rule. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-and forward,” Draco took a slow, sweeping step that took him ninety degrees to the left, “Backwards,” Another long step, backwards, turning ninety degrees counter-clockwise, to face Harry, who’d adopted a look of intense concentration, “Forward, backwards.” Two more steps, two more turns, completed the circle, bringing Draco back to just where he’d been when he’d begun the first set. “Left,” A skimming step to the left, followed by a half revolution, “Turn, right, turn,” brought him neatly back to where he’d begun again.

“Then you break, and there’s a variation to the usual pattern for a set. It’s more like eight beats for two movements in one set—but you’ll see. Both partners, moving to face opposite directions, 1-2-3-and,” Draco made the slow turn that had been depicted in the garden statues, ending up halfway around the circle he was dancing, glancing over towards Harry. Merlin, he hoped Potter’s mystified expression was only due to Draco’s grace, not the steps themselves. Though that was flattery he doubted he deserved. Without missing a beat, he continued revolving around the circle through the third and fourth movements of the set, returning to his original position.

“Then the partners are reunited, then 1-2-3-and forward, backwards,” Draco made first two quarter-turn steps that he had performed in the first set, slow and easy, bringing him opposite of Harry again. “Front step,” Draco said, stepping straight across the imaginary circle, elbow almost brushing Harry’s side, “Back step,” And Draco took a light step backwards, into the space he’d just vacated. “So, you end at the other side of the circle, facing the opposite direction. And the pattern continues. You end in your original place every other time, and you remain contained to a circle. It makes it fairly easy not to bump into other people at balls. And that’s all there is to it: turning around the circle, making a square in the circle, revolving around the circle, then the half circle turn. A basic quadrilatère.”

“Right,” Harry said, sounding no more convinced than last time, “Right… It can’t be that bad, can it? Let’s just give it a go.”

Draco held out his right hand, and Harry took it. He hadn’t noticed until that very moment that Harry had taken his dueling gloves off at some point. His hand was warm and firm, and his fingers curled with steadying certainty over Draco’s. Merlin, it was nice, just having his hand held. It wasn’t even businesslike. It was extended and comfortable. Just _nice_. Draco was considering how ‘not bad’ things were going when Harry put his free hand boldly on his hip. His gaze jolted up to Harry’s, as though expecting that Potter was making an odd joke, but of course he wasn’t. Harry was looking at him with all the innocence in the world. “Wrong spot, Potter,” Draco said, and Harry frowned.

“Whoops. Sorry,” He said, and shifted his hand to the top of Draco’s shoulder.

“Not quite.”

Harry looked flummoxed, “Where then?”

“Weren’t you listening?” Draco asked, but he couldn’t help but smile. Oh, he relished being better at something than Potter. And Harry happened to be rather charming when he was confused. He was also charming when he was self-possessed, and incandescent with loveliness when he was angry or brooding. It was difficult for Draco to think of a time when Potter didn’t look his own personal brand of scruffy-beautiful. Draco was hopeless. And in terms of the lesson, so was Harry.

“I did, but there was a lot of steps. Forward and backwards and revolving and counting. And this bit was just at the beginning. Was it the waist? No—” He slid his hand to Draco’s back, and Draco gave him a small nod, putting his own hand on Potter’s shoulder. Through the dress shirt, he could feel Harry’s warmth, and a firm bulge of muscle. Merlin, he’d filled out nicely since becoming an Auror.

“And then?” Draco asked, looking over Harry’s shoulder towards the piano, still playing the sweet melody, to spare himself the butterflies he was guaranteed to feel if he looked Harry in the face right now. He could enjoy this moment and hold himself together at the same time.

“And then we just…”

To his credit, Harry did start on the correct beat and with the right step. With the song swelling towards its midpoint, Harry adjusted his hand on Draco’s shoulder, and stepped forwards, if not confidently, then at least correctly. Draco usually led, but he’d followed now and then too, and matched Potter’s step backwards with an equal one of his own, a gentle turn. The second step—Draco moved to step forward, just as Potter also took a step forward. They crashed together, chests and noses bumping, Harry trodding on Draco’s foot, and then a roll in the carpet, catching his balance just in time, though nearly dragging Draco along with him. “Ouch,” Draco said, hand flying reflexively from Harry’s shoulder to clutch at his nose. It didn’t actually hurt; he realized a second later. It had only been a little bump. Harry’s glasses were askew as he righted himself, looking concerned. He set his glasses straight and took a step closer, peering at Draco’s face.

“You alright? It’s not bleeding or anything, is it?”

“I’m fine,” Draco said, dropping his hand, “It’s forwards, backwards, forwards, backwards for the first set. Let’s try it again.”

They drew together again, Harry holding Draco’s hand, his other arm curled around his back, Draco with his hand on Harry’s shoulder. Together they took the first set one movement at a time, with Harry moving haltingly, Draco always anticipating the correct steps and sometimes finding himself offbeat as Harry figured out how to move his feet, his hand drawing Draco forward at the wrong time, but still comforting in its steadiness and warmth. Forestalling failure in the second part of the dance as they returned to where they’d begun, Draco tilted his head, in the direction of the next step, “Left, then a turn.”

“Okay,” Harry agreed, stepping to the left in perfect time, and then following it with a turn—but only a quarter turn.

“You’re supposed to turn all the way around,” Draco prompted, trying to hide a twitch of a smile. To which Harry turned another three quarters around, instead of just turning back the way he’d come, forcing Draco to fumble along with him. “Aradia’s ashes, Potter, half turn. Half turn.”

“What do I do now, though?” Harry asked, and Draco gave his shoulder a little push.

“Just fix it and keep going,” Draco said.

They finished the set off-beat, and with the song starting to end, but Draco didn’t want to cut Potter a break just yet. He was having more fun than he’d expected to have, watching Harry butcher a dance. Draco let go of him, and Harry’s look of mild surprise broke into understanding as he let his hand drop from Draco’s back, “Oh right. The turn thing.”

“The turn thing,” he said, and moved to begin his walk around the circle, only to see Harry perform a sort of lazy pirouette on the spot, holding his arms like a ballerina in first position. Draco stopped, choking out a laugh.

“What? No good?” Harry said, and he did it again, swinging his leg around in a mad attempt at grace, turning his palms out to ask for approval. Draco couldn’t help himself. Potter, for all his skill on a broom and dexterity in dueling, might as well have been a hippogriff trying to dance _en pointe_. The laughter bubbled up from somewhere inside of him, bright and ticklish, and Draco gave himself up to it. Harry was looking at him, amused but still hopelessly confused too, “Is it the arms I’m doing wrong?” And Harry spun around again, moving his arms and wrists to the slow beat of the closing melody, like a mockery of a bird flapping its wings. Draco sank down into a crouch, sobbing with laugher as Harry stopped and threw his hands up, “Am I that bad?”

Clutching his belly with one arm, breathless with laugher, Draco managed to wheeze out, “Is that what I looked like, to you?” His stomach muscles were starting to ache, and his eyes were tearing up with the delightful madness of Harry spinning around and around on the spot like a figure in a music box in Draco’s sitting room, trying earnestly to get his approval. He swooned against the chaise lounge, letting his laughter ease gradually. Dabbing at his eyes with his sleeve, he looked across at Harry, who was surveying the room, smiling still but looking nonplussed.

"Hey, Malfoy, I think things have gotten brighter in here. Look at the windows,” Harry said. And he was right. Draco sat up, staring at the clear glass of the windows, as transparent as they had ever been, not distorting the color of the sunlight or the gardens beyond. The floors looked richer too, gleaming darkly in the light, and the chaise lounge didn’t look so faded anymore.

“Merlin. It hasn’t looked this good in ages,” Draco said, standing up to take a turn around the room, sliding his fingers over the dust-free lid of the piano, “It wasn’t like this when we came in, I’m sure of it. I would have noticed.”

“No, it happened just now. I saw it happening while you were laughing,” Harry said, brow furrowing just a little, “Hey, Malfoy. Why don’t you try the Patronus charm again? You’re in a better mood now. It should be easier. It probably won’t be a powerful enough memory for a full Patronus, but try the dancing one, okay? I think you could some mist out of it, anyway.” It was difficult to imagine that laughing at Harry would be enough to power any emotion-driven spell, but Draco couldn’t deny that he did feel much more buoyant now than he had in the garden. He drew his wand, rolling the hawthorn shaft in his fingers, contemplating the warmth in his chest, and the pleasant soreness of his sides. He’d been having fun, that was all. Just having fun. “S’just Expecto Patronum,” Harry prompted. As if Draco would have forgotten the incantation. But Draco didn’t snap back, instead conjuring up the image of Harry flapping and twirling like a duck attempting ballet in his mind. Oh, _Potter. _He raised his wand.

“Expecto Patronum,” Draco said. And pale, but glittering in the sunlight, mist spilled from his wand into a shimmering haze. Harry whooped and thumped Draco on the back, jarring him as the mist dissipated. “Well, it was _something_,” Draco said, trying not to sound pleased with himself for such a feeble display of magic.

“Exactly, you got something,” Harry said, squeezing Draco’s shoulder with a strong, warm hand, “That’s brilliant! Now you know you can do it. It just takes finding a better memory and getting in the right frame of mind. We’ll get there. Now come on. Give it another go. Just to get a feel for it.” 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the dance lesson, Ron comes back with the results of his and Hermione's research thus far.

By the time Harry declared himself satisfied, Draco could reliably produce a spray of silver mist. It was translucent and had no hint of a body to it, but as Harry had said, it was something. It was more productive than he’d been in months, anyway: an evolution, as opposed to a devolution. The piano had stopped playing Léandrés’s works and was entertaining itself playing piano-only renditions of classic pieces of chamber music. Harry was sprawled in the chaise lounge, and Draco was in a good enough mood with him that he bit his tongue about the heels of Harry’s boots resting on the fine fabric. Mimsy would be happy enough to curse Potter while cleaning it later. Anyway, on the whole, the room looked better than it had in the last year. Draco might have walked downstairs to find his mother making Fever Balm in the kitchen, or his father’s old hunting dogs laying before the fire. He felt his age again. Younger, lighter. 

“Not bad, Malfoy,” Harry said as Draco lowered his wand, and tucked it back into the loop on his hip, “That’s loads of progress from just this morning. I bet you could do it even in a pinch, now. And you can work on finding a stronger memory, so it’ll do a better job... Wonder what your Patronus will be.”

“Probably a ferret,” Draco said darkly, remembering in a flash the pain and humiliation of that transformation in fourth year. Harry snorted with laughter. 

"Ron would love that. Doubt it is, since you’ve got a grudge against them. Might be a cat. Seems like you’re a bit aloof sometimes, like a cat. Do you only want a scratch behind the ears when everyone’s working?” Harry asked, with a tone that Draco might have taken as flirtation if he hadn’t been grinning quite so widely. As it was, stuck between the understatement of ‘a bit aloof sometimes’ and the sheer ridiculousness of the ear-scratching question, Draco found himself open-mouthed and tongue-tied. Harry cut in again before Draco managed to get a word out, “Oh, don’t look like that. I was only playing around… Look at that. It’s dark out. What time is it?” 

“No idea,” Draco said, and his fingers drifted towards his wand with a mind to cast a time-telling charm, but Harry was already tugging up his sleeve a bit to peer at a golden, star-spangled wrist-watch. 

“Blimey. It’s past four. I was sure Ron would be back by now,” Harry said. The bothered little crease was back between Harry’s eyebrows. Clearly Harry had been expecting Weasley and Granger to work their magic quicker. Maybe Draco had held out hope despite himself, too, because something chilly settled in his guts, and his tongue felt tacky against the roof of his mouth. Aurors and other Ministry employees working first shift clocked out at 5:00 PM. In less than an hour, Harry was going to be off-duty, and but for Mimsy, Draco was going to be alone in the house. The thought of returning to his room and rousing in a cold sweat in the dead of night to face a living nightmare turned his stomach quite sour. He tensed his jaw, holding his shoulders firm. 

“Well, Potter, I can tell you without question that if what attacked me wasn’t a Boggart, I haven’t a clue what it could be, and I’ve been studying the nature of dark creatures and magic since I was old enough to read. I don’t know what you saw in here, but what I saw surely would have been the form a Boggart would have taken for me. Regardless, I’m not surprised that even Granger didn’t manage to turn something up over the course of a few hours,” He said. Harry straightened up on the lounge, hands clasped together. 

“That’s the weird thing. I was pretty sure that it was personalized to you. I mean, I recognized them—your parents. But they weren’t actually there. They weren’t physical, I mean. Impedimenta, Protego, Stupefy, shooting sparks. We might as well not have had wands at all—the spells didn’t do anything. The thing didn’t even seem angry. And then I cast the Patronus charm, and it all just went to smoke. It was weird. It was all I could think of to do. I guess it’s good it sort of worked, but I probably wouldn’t have even tried it if Ron hadn’t mentioned that something about the house seemed… off,” Harry said, lifting a hand to rub at his temple. Feeling a bit ill, Draco sank down to sit at the foot of the lounge, staring out at the night sky visible through the clean windows. “And then there’s what happened in here, just now. Things definitely changed when you got into a good mood. I wonder if what’s going on in the rest of the house is sort of connected to you, too. Have you ever heard of anything like that?”

“No,” He said dismally, “And if this is all my fault somehow, for being miserable, then why didn’t happen sooner? I’ve been miserable in the Manor since You-Know-Who started popping by for Sunday roasts.”

“I wasn’t blaming you,” Harry said. Draco could see his green eyes turn towards him, and the stubborn set of his chin, “I don’t think it’s your fault. I just think you’ve got to be involved, somehow. I don’t understand it, but it doesn’t make sense otherwise.” As much as Draco didn’t enjoy the thought that a dark creature might be intimately familiar with the least pleasant corners of his mind, Potter had a point. He gave a single, grim nod. Harry gave him another bracing shoulder squeeze before standing up. “Come on. Ron’ll probably turn up downstairs any minute.” 

At a quarter to five, just as Harry had predicted, a burst of flame bloomed in the great hall’s fireplace, and Weasley stepped out of it, no longer wearing his jacket, and looking distinctly worn out. His eyes slid over Draco, landed squarely on Harry, and stuck. “Been with Hermione in the stacks all day, Harry,” he said, dragging a hand down his stubbled cheek, “Not that I envied you, or anything, but it’s been bloody boring. Hermione’s enjoying herself, though. She thinks this is a really interesting case. Never heard of anything like it. We’ve just been poring over books and Hermione’s been making an index of sources we’ve checked.”

“Any luck at all?” Harry asked. Misplaced optimism, Draco was sure of it. 

“There’s nothing yet,” Weasley said, and shrugged, “But we’re doing everything we can.” Of course, he could afford to be flippant about it; not even bother to address him. After all, what did Weasley care if Draco was killed in his bed as he slept? “Hermione’s bringing home some ‘light reading’ for me and her to do tonight, so we’ll be working overtime and everything. You can pop by if you want to take a couple books off my hands.”

Draco studied his cuticles and the shamefully ragged edges of his nails, trying not to show an ounce of the fear he felt as Harry stood up from the sofa where they had been waiting. Maybe he had moved, or given some other, subtle sign, because Harry had not taken a step before he turned and fixed Draco with a long, hard look. Draco remained resolutely focused on nudging the cuticle of his thumb back, face smooth and expressionless as a death mask. He was not going to be driven out of his own home. He would not show fear or weakness. He would press on against the dark as he always had, with a hopeless, tired determination: one step further, one day more, turning through the wash of time like a cog in a clock. He was Draco Malfoy, fallen and ill-favored, but if nothing else, still here. 

“I’m staying.” Harry might as well have shouted them. Draco started with sheer surprise. Weasley’s mouth fell open. 

“You’re not!” Weasley said. Harry was clearly expecting this reaction, because his arms were folded over his chest, and his feet firmly set, as though prepared to tackled. 

“Look, Ron, Malfoy hasn’t mastered the Patronus charm yet, and I think this whole thing has something to do with him. Not that he’s causing it,” He clarified as Ron’s eyes widened, “But I think whatever it is is sort of… targeting him. It responds to his emotions. It picks up on his fears. I’m going to stay here to investigate and see if I can find out anymore. It’s the best way to investigate this case.” 

“Harry, you need a partner! And you’ve got to rest.” 

“Yeah, you’re right, I do. And I’ve got you, and Hermione. Two of us should be going through books; I know there’s loads. One of us should stay here. We could trade, if you wanted. I could go study with Hermione, and you could stay with—”

“Absolutely not,” Draco said at the same time as Weasley growled, “No way.” 

Harry raised his eyebrows and cocked his head towards Draco, “So then, you stay with Hermione, I’ll stay with Draco. It’s been alright so far. That okay with you, Malfoy?” Harry asked, and Draco took his first easy breath since leaving the music room. 

“Of course, Auror Potter,” Draco said, with a primness of tone that made Weasley turn an incredible shade of puce, “What hospitality the Manor has, I extend to you. I appreciate your dedication.” 

“You’re kidding,” Weasley said under his breath, giving Harry one last, long look before grimacing. “Right… Be careful, Harry. If anything crops up that can’t be handled, get out of there and wake me up, alright? It would be bloody stupid if you died in Malfoy Manor now.” 

“Alright, Ron,” Harry said, placating, “I’ll be careful, I promise. If things look bad, we’ll leave. Okay? Happy studying. Don’t let Hermione keep you up too late.”

“Yeah,” Weasley said, without conviction, and with one last suspicious glance over his shoulder at Malfoy, he was gone again in another burst of green flame.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Draco enjoy dinner together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick CW: Draco discusses his difficulty eating related to his depression. I know that sort of content can be triggering for some people. Just wanted to give you a heads up.

Mimsy’s thinly veiled displeasure that Harry would be staying the night was balanced by her delight that Draco was asking for dinner. “It doesn’t have to be anything special,” he said, though her eyes were gleaming with discomforting brightness, “Soup and salad, or something. Don’t trouble yourself.” 

“It could never trouble Mimsy to take care of Master Malfoy,” Mimsy said with delight. Once again, she’d managed to put herself directly between him and Harry, and was pointedly ignoring the Auror. “Poor Master Malfoy has hardly been eating anything. And what is I to do if you is wasting away? I will be making you something very nice. Something good for your constitution.” And with a sharp crack, she disapperated. Draco sighed, and massaged the bridge of his nose. Something told him that dinner would be far more elaborate than bread and soup. Harry looked over at him, a familiar expression of puzzlement twisting his mouth.

“Dobby’s still the only house elf that I get at all,” Harry said, “Do you think he acts the way he does because of how terrible your family was to him?”

“I’m certain my father’s abuse didn’t help,” Draco said dully, remembering with no small amount of shame how happy he had been any time his father’s anger found Dobby as its target, instead of himself, “Honestly, I have no idea. They have feelings, of course. They can love, and they are quite clever; powerful enough to rival a witch or wizard in a duel. And they can be horribly taken advantage of. But I think what your friend Granger never grasped is that, while they are beings, house elves aren’t human. Not to say that they deserve abuse, or to excuse the way my father treated Dobby, but their motivations are their own. It doesn’t seem a good life to me, but Mimsy turned mutinous when I suggested she might not want to serve me. I offered her the Lestrange Estate as her home, and a monthly pension. She dissappareted and refused to speak to me the rest of the day. The next morning, she served me dead cockroaches in my porridge.”

“Oh yeah? Kreacher—the house elf who lives in Grimmauld Place with me—sent me maggots for Christmas the year after Sirius died. So, what did you do?”

“I apologized, obviously. Extensively. I told her that this was her home, and I was happy to share it with her; that I valued her work and was sorry if I had appeared ungrateful. I was fairly certain that she’d despise the suggestion in the first place, but after Dobby, and after Granger had been right about so much else, I thought that I should extend the offer,” Draco said, exhaling a slow, deflated breath. Beyond that, too, he’d been ashamed of his own condition. He hadn’t wanted any more witnesses to his disgrace. “That put her in a good mood straight away, and she’s been incredibly doting ever since. I’ll tell you this, house elves aren’t shy about showing when they’re displeased with their situation. Everyone could tell Dobby was miserable. Mimsy was upset when I suggested she might prefer to be on her own, and punished me for my insolence. You saw how the Black Family house elf responded when he felt he was being pawned off to an unworthy wizard. And surely Granger received some form of complaint from the Hogwarts house elves during her campaigning?” Harry laughed at that. 

“Oh, yeah. They went on strike—stopped cleaning Gryffindor Tower because she was stashing hats everywhere. Only Dobby was willing to do anything in there,” Harry said, and Draco felt a tug of a smile in his stomach and on his lips, though he let his gaze rest safely on the flames lapping up in the fireplace. 

“There you are, then. They make their wishes known quite clearly. And if those wishes make no sense to us, then… Well, it’s not necessary to understand those wishes in order to respect them.” As a child, when he had been dedicated to discovering the origins of all magical creatures, house elves had always vexed his brain. They were most like the many sorts of higher Fey—three hundred years gone, by wizarding estimation, though if extinct or simply in some unreachable elsewhere no one could reliably conclude—in that there were many records of them simply appearing unannounced without offering any explanation as to their previous whereabouts, and declaring themselves bound to a house. To his knowledge, that had not happened since before the Global Wizarding War. But then, the number of magical households had been diminishing rather than increasing since before that time as well. Coincidence or connection? Draco tugged at his lip, mind flitting to the nest of Common British Fairies that had taken up residence in the well down by the herb and highland rock gardens. Funny little creatures, always grooming themselves in any reflection they could find. 

“So—” Harry began, and Draco’s eyes flew towards him, yanked suddenly out of his wandering thoughts, “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. I was just wondering, where do you want me to sleep, while I’m here. I’m not picky or anything. Just curious. On the sofa down here?”

Draco gave an inelegant snort, “Potter, the Manor hasn’t lost its guest rooms: you don’t have to kip on a sofa. You can take the room next to mine. It hasn’t been used in quite a while, but I’m sure you’ll find it agreeable enough.” That way, too, if something did try to kill him in the night, at least Harry wouldn’t be able to sleep through it peacefully. 

“Brilliant,” Harry said, with every appearance of real cheer, “You’ll have to show me. I could get lost in this place.” 

In short order, Mimsy returned to escort Draco (with Harry tagging along behind) to the smaller of the two dining rooms. The curtains here were dark enough that, even if they had been affected by whatever rot had set into the drapes of the other room, it wouldn’t have made much difference. Despite the two fires at either end of the hall, and the candles lit in the iron chandelier, the room was frigid and dark. Mimsy had set Draco’s place at he head of the table, complete with a napkin in a napkin ring, and silverware appropriate for a four course meal. There was a suggestion of a place at the side of the far end of the table—a single bowl and spoon. Draco almost laughed at the contrast between Mimsy’s delight and the look of quiet bewilderment on Harry’s face. “If you could just get a napkin, fork and cup for Auror Potter when you send in the food, I would appreciate it,” Draco said as he sat down in his own seat, “Thank you, Mimsy.” 

“If you is saying so, Master Malfoy,” Mimsy said tersely, bobbing a quick curtsy before dissapperating. 

“She really isn’t a fan of me,” Harry said, walking around to the far end of the table to begin to push the bowl down. The corner of Draco’s mouth tugged in another faint smile. He did love that Harry didn’t know how these things worked. 

“Don’t move the place—” Draco cut himself off with a laugh. His advice had come too late. As fragrant curried carrot soup had appeared in his own bowl, a considerably less generous amount appeared in the spot where Harry’s bowl had been and splashed onto the table. The sleeve of Harry’s dress shirt was splattered, and Harry gave a small yelp of pain, snatching away his hand. 

“Merlin’s bollocks! Ouch, that’s hot.” 

Still chortling, Draco aimed a non-verbal cleaning spell at the table, followed by Harry’s shirt, and finally the carpet. “Alright there, Potter?” He asked, once Harry had slid his bowl back to where Mimsy had placed it and sat down.

“Just a small scalding, yeah,” Harry said stoutly, only sparing a glance for his wrist, “Sorry about that. I thought she was going to bring it out.”

“Why would she want to carry tureens of soup around when she can just apport the soup over?” Draco pointed out, gazing down at the design in crème fraiche decorating his soup. It smelled lovely, and for the first time in a long time, he rather wanted to eat. Under Harry’s gaze, he took a spoonful. It was rich, hot and perfectly spiced. He sighed with something close to satisfaction as it settled warmly into his stomach. “Sorry to eat in front of you, Potter,” He said, looking up from his bowl, “But I have to take my meals when I can stand them. And I believe Mimsy is serving four courses. If she under-serves you, we can swap plates. I doubt I’ll be in the mood for too much.” Harry’s brow furrowed, and Draco felt the intensity of those green eyes sharpen on him. Draco was very glad he had showered and dressed, but half an hour of work could not undo months of neglect. He knew he was paler than ever, that his eyes no longer looked quite right in his head—dull, shadowed, tired. He had lost weight that he couldn’t really afford to, and had been getting no exercise. He looked frail and sickly in ways that a fresh shave and clean hair could not disguise. Even Harry, unobservant as he was, must have noticed by now. He watched Harry press his lips together then relax them, rather enchanted by the way the color flushed in them. 

“I don’t want you to think I’m pitying you again, and I don’t want to drag things up that you don’t want to talk about. But do you want to talk about that at all? Because it seems sort of not good,” Harry said haltingly. And Draco didn’t want to talk about it. Why would he? But there was a gentleness in Harry’s face that had found the resonant frequency of Draco’s heart strings, and everything hurt, and Harry had done him the service of staying the night and firmly justifying it, without Draco having to say a word. Draco looked back down at his soup, and ate a few more spoonfuls: gathering his wits as Harry watched. Finally, he took a sip of water, and cleared his throat. 

“Since my parents left for France, I have found that my appetite has failed me. It was on shaky legs before they left, but it’s only been getting worse. I have stomachaches quite often. But even more than that, no food appeals to me. I eat every day—whatever I can stand. But so much of the time it feels horrible in my mouth, or the taste grinds on my nerves, or I feel as though my stomach is already quite full of rocks. Mimsy is constantly trying to offer me things. Sometimes I can manage a proper meal. But half of the time, all I can get through is an apple, or bread and butter, or oatmeal, or broth. Desserts, sometimes. But I used to love sweets, Potter. Now, nothing appeals. This soup is rather lovely, though. So I’m not going to be polite and abstain for your sake,” Draco said, giving a thin smile that was returned by a heart-squeezing grin. 

“I wouldn’t ask you to. Sounds miserable, what you’ve been feeling. You should definitely eat,” Harry said. Poached salmon in white wine sauce over pilaf and roast vegetables in a balsamic glaze followed the soup, and while as he’d predicted, the portion sizes were notably smaller for Harry than they were for Draco, Harry stalwartly refused to swap. “Listen,” He said, gesturing with a Brussels sprout speared on the end of his fork, “You got though all the soup okay, didn’t you? If you start to feel sick, I mean, stop eating. But I promise, I’m fine! I ate loads for breakfast this morning. And being well-fed will probably help you with the Patronus Charm.” 

“Rubbish,” Draco said, even as he cut his fish, “You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?” He raised his eyebrows at Harry, who nodded.

“I mean it, Malfoy. It will help,” Harry said it with enough conviction that Draco bit his tongue and focused on eating his food, “Merlin, what’s on these vegetables? They’re delicious.” The portion sizes that Mimsy had given him were more than what he would have eaten even in the best of times: Draco didn’t force himself to clean his plate. But, with Harry commentating on how good the food was, he did eat most of it, and was feeling warm and haler than he had in ages by the time he put down his fork and knife. The dishes from the main course and accompaniment were cleared away, replaced by two crystal goblets of remarkably similar blackberry fools, as well as a small glass of Armagnac for Draco, and he groaned, sinking back in his chair, legs stretched out under the table. 

“Oh… I’ll eat that in a moment,” He said, waving a hand. Harry set in gleefully on his own fool, and Draco watched with perverse delight as Harry licked custard off his spoon; grey eyes soft, face relaxed, “Tell me—how is the whole Auror thing treating you?”

“S’alright,” Harry said, gulping down water to clear his mouth—Draco wrinkled his nose in distaste—“I’m sort of… on-edge a lot. I keep feeling as though something really bad is going to happen every time I go out. I guess I’ve kind of been trained to expect the worst. But I get to help loads of people, and I love hanging out with Ron all the time, and I’m only on-duty three days a week, so it kind of balances out. Hermione thinks I should get a different job, but I’m planning on sticking it out for a couple more years, anyway. Just until things quiet down. After that… I dunno. I was thinking about taking correspondence courses so I can pass my NEWTs, and then applying to teach at Hogwarts. I don’t want to be an Auror forever.” 

“I’m sure Hogwarts would be happy to have you,” Draco mused, “And the students would be delighted.”

“Hopefully they’d get over the whole ‘killed Voldemort’ thing after a few days,” Harry said, and Draco had to remind himself that he couldn’t appear overly fond of Harry. Why was he so damnably charming when he was being dense? 

“I have first-hand accounts of what an excellent teacher you were in fifth year,” Draco reminded him. He was almost positive Harry flushed with embarrassed pride. Merlin, he had to stop that. 

“Well, yeah. I do okay,” He said, grinning at Draco and rumpling up his hair again. Damn, damn, damn. 

“You taught them all Patronus charms,” Draco said, grabbing the stem of his crystal goblet and dragging it closer to himself, “Don’t give me that humble rot, Potter. I don’t believe it for a second.” Not trusting his mouth any further, Draco started in on his blackberry fool.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco and Harry have a post-dinner chat, following which Draco suffers a bit of a spiral.

Feeling warm and full, with the Armagnac tickling his fingertips and toes, Draco thanked Mimsy for the meal. Her attitude towards Harry was slightly but noticeably warmer after dinner. She went so far as to cast a sidelong look at him that communicated something other than scorn before beaming at Draco. “I is very glad you is eating well. You is eating better than you has all year. Mimsy has tidied the bedroom by Master Malfoy’s for Auror Potter,” She told him, “And if you is wanting anything else, you can be calling. Chamomile tea, or a bath, or a calming draught, or anything.”

“Thank you, Mimsy,” Draco said, not failing to notice the tiny turn towards Harry that Mimsy had performed during the last sentence, “I’ll call you if I need you. And thank you again for an excellent dinner.” With a curtsey and a pop, Mimsy dissapparated--presumably back to her bedroom. 

“Do you think she liked me pouring soup on myself?” Harry said as Draco shepherded him towards the stairs, “She definitely seems to hate me less than she did before.”

“She’s credited you with my improved appetite,” Draco said as they started the climb up towards the bedrooms, rising into the close, cold dark, but the combination of Harry’s dragonhide trousers and the after-dinner drink were doing wonderful things to the direction of his attention. It was a shame the lamps didn’t cut through the dim as well as they used to, if only because it would have afforded him a better look. Even so, Draco could appreciate a work of art even in poor lighting. “What sort of physical training did they have you do?” He asked. Harry looked back over his shoulder and actually chuckled before shrugging. 

“I mean, they have us run and do other agility stuff. But I’ve gotten into sport, actually, and been training up for that—going to the gym and everything. Been playing rugby, if you’ve heard of it. Muggle game. Just for fun: I’m only okay at it. But it’s distracting, and it’s nice, having friends who don’t think of anything when they see my scar. The muscles have gotten me attention in the wizarding world that I didn’t really want, though. Witch Weekly wanted me to do a pin-up photo shoot for a charity calendar.”

“Don’t tell me you turned them down,” Draco said in faux surprise. 

“Like I said, anytime I get asked to do something like that, I ask myself if Lockhart would do it, and if he would, then I don’t,” Harry said, and stepped out into the hallway, looking both ways into the dark, “Where are we going?” 

“Left,” Draco said, slipping past Harry to walk down the hall, which stretched on past the edge of sight into the dark. The candles flickered fitfully in their sconces, as though they were being worried at by a breeze. But the air was still, heavy, and cold. In the timid, wavering light, the shadows moved in strange ways, and formed shapes that looked solid enough to give him a start. Draco looked back over his shoulder at Harry, who widened his eyes a little and smiled. Nothing. There was nothing. Draco came to the guest bedroom closest to his own room and opened the door for Harry. It was only slightly smaller than Draco’s own room, albeit with a less recently renovated ensuite. Mimsy had set a cheerful fire in the grate, and the room was much warmer than the hall. The bed was made up in jewel blue, the bedside harp was playing a drowsy melody, and Harry’s freshly pressed Auror jacket was hanging on the coat rack. The curtains were a bit charred at the edges, the ceiling and walls oddly yellowed, and the painting over the fireplace which usually depicted a still-life of fresh flowers and fruit had begun rotting, but it was as nice as could be expected—which was to say, woefully inadequate. Draco tightened his jaw, trying to hold onto the lovely warmth that had blossomed over dinner. But the harder he tried to hold onto it, the quicker it seemed to slip away. “Sorry it’s not nicer. But you will be more comfortable here than in the great room, at least,” Draco said. Harry flopped down at the foot of the bed and tugged off his boots.

“Seems great to me,” He said, setting the boots down by the footboard and looking around with what looked like sincere appreciation, “Honestly, Draco, your whole house is so posh that it’s hard for me to see what’s wrong with it. My aunt and uncle would probably find something to complain about, after they got done drooling over the crown molding and the chandeliers and the number of fireplaces. I mean, it seems old. But it is old, right? You were talking about your great-great-great grandparents, or whatever. So I don’t even think it’s a bad thing. Not that I don’t think it should be fixed—” Harry said quickly, as Draco opened his mouth to protest, “But I’m just saying, it looks like something a historical society would care about preserving. So to me, someone who’s never lived here, it looks fine. And whatever Ron was talking about—it feeling bad, or whatever—I’m not getting it. Except for that first attack, I’ve been having a pretty good time, actually.” Was that heartfelt too? A simple compliment to cheer him up? Was he actually flirting? Harry’s eyes glittered, pupils wide in the shadow of the room, “You’re not a bad host, you know.” Pixie shit, he was flirting. Why in the heavens would he do a thing like that? Feeling like a tea kettle about to start whistling with panic rising from his heart to his ears, Draco cleared his throat. 

“Thank you, Potter,” He said with measured tones, “I’m sorry I’m not hosting under better circumstances. If you need anything, do let me know. Goodnight.” And before Harry could get another word in edgewise, Draco escorted himself out of the room and closed the door behind him. The regret winded him as sure as the latch clicked shut. Merlin and Morgana, what was wrong with him? Draco leaned back against the wall beside the door and pressed his hands to his face. Potter had been flirting with him—sweetly, playfully flirting with him—and Draco had locked down like a Gringotts’ vault. He had said something, and that something had been socially appropriate, but it was so far from the ideal response that the echo of his own words kept rattling around in his head. Draco exhaled a forced breath, chest feeling tight despite the ebbing influence of his digestif, and pushed away from the wall. “Oh, you’re too kind, Potter,” He whispered as he started down the hall towards his bedroom, “You should come again after all this rubbish is sorted. I’ll show you just how good a host I can be… And with some practice, you might not be a bad dancer, Potter. Let’s both try again some time… Well, you’re a delightful guest. I’m glad we’re both satisfied. Idiot.” Why couldn’t he have just taken the step forward with Harry? All he had to do was meet him halfway. Instead he had balked, too fearful of vulnerability to say much of anything. Idiot. Such a fucking moron. 

Fingernails digging into his palms, Draco dragged himself to his own bedroom. The room had a distinctive scent of Mrs Skower's, partially covered by sage and lavender: three dried bouquets of the stuff were arranged in porcelain vases around the room. It was obvious Mimsy had gone to work here, taking advantage of Draco’s longest sojourn away from his bedroom in nearly a year. But the place still looked like hell. Though not the first affected place in the manor, his bedroom was certainly one of the worst hit. The warmth and heat of the fire died just feet away from the grate. The floors seemed scuffed by the dragging of iron-shod feet. Mimsy had pulled the curtains closed here, to shut out the night and hide the disastrous glass, but they looked moth-eaten, and Draco could smell the bittersweetness of rot rolling off them, even through the cleaning product and the dried bouquets. The wallpaper—green vines on cream—that had once appeared to flutter in a breeze at his command, now looked wilted and sickly. Along the walls, there were brief flashes of movement. Here. There. Always in the corners of his eyes. Not like the wind in leaves. Much more like furtive, darting insects. Feeling like a puppet with its strings cut, Draco fell heavily onto his bed. The bedframe lurched and groaned, shifted, but held. Draco closed his eyes and rubbed his knuckles into them. Even when something was handed to him, he was helpless to do anything but fuck it up. He lay there for a long time in the chill dim, on top of the covers, not able to pull together the energy to even remove his own boots. Amazing, really, how he could be so useless. 

His thoughts wandered to the long weeks he had spent here, laying alone in the dark, doing nothing, and hating himself for doing nothing, but not wanting to do anything. Past that, down the hall to the right, he remembered seeing his father, skin sallow, hair matted, smelling of stale sweat and whiskey, sitting in his study—desk a scorched ruin long extinguished—staring silently out at the grounds. Not acknowledging him to either give or receive criticism or question. His mother, at the edge of the daybed looking pale and tired, gently entreating both of them in turn: “Lucius, our son is here. Won’t you speak to him? Draco, darling, could you say something kind to your father? He’s very upset.” And saying nothing, nothing, nothing. What was there to say? What meaningful kindness did he have to give? And yet, Draco still worried over the memory, and still felt the guilt like a stone in the pit of his stomach. And past the grounds, to the outside world, righteously unwelcoming. An echo chamber of all his worst actions and all his worst qualities. He should feel guilty. And he was selfish for wanting to avoid guilt. But Draco was tired, and full, and he’d drank at dinner. Uneasy as his thoughts were, his body couldn’t resist sleep for long. He fell asleep across the foot of the bed without meaning to, still fully dressed.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco wakes in the dead of night to a new, horrible vision.

Addled nightmares of figures, masked and robed, moving through the grounds and towards the house, blurred into waking. Draco could feel clammy sweat under his shirt and against the back of his neck, and his heart racing as though he’d just run up a flight of stairs. His mouth was dry as paper. He opened his eyes. His bedroom was cast in the weird half-light of the dying fire. Draco tried to draw breath. His body refused to obey his command. He tried to lift his hands, to kick his legs—nothing. He lay like a corpse, unable to do anything but stare up at the ceiling, waiting for his consciousness to fail. Unbidden, his chest rose and fell. Mist drifted from his nose: the air was winter-cold. Something drifted into the edges of his sight. But this time, unlike the fearful movements of the illusory insects in the wallpaper, it continued to move into his field of vision with stately slowness. 

Draco wanted to open his mouth. To run. To grab his wand. But he was helpless to so much as blink. He lay paralyzed at the foot of his bed, as a pale face looked down at him. Skin like a cave creature, whose great-grandparents had died knowing only stories of the sun, translucent and mildew-damp, was pulled over harsh bones. Its cheeks were webbed with fine venules, and blue veins bulged in its neck and under its eyes. Great, grey eyes, wet and bloodshot in the red emberlight. Its hair was long, long as his father’s, lank and matted as it had been in the weeks following the trial. But its pointed chin and finely chiseled nose were not his father’s. And those eyes—those eyes were not his father’s either. His own twisted doppelganger stared down at him. 

Draco tried again to open his mouth, or to scream, but his lips only parted a fraction, his breath catching in his throat. He was suffocating. He was surely going to die for want of air, if this dark beast didn’t kill him first. As though reading his thoughts, Draco’s mimic drew a wand out of the sleeve of its motheaten robe and brandished it in its hand. White and spidery. So much like the Dark Lord’s hand. “Little weasel,” it said, voice threadbare and dusty, “What are you doing in my bed?” Draco’s lungs forced out a breath of mist. He twitched a finger. He was going to die. He was seconds from death. He had been waiting for eons, but the precipice was terrifying. “Little weasels don’t belong here. There is no room for pests.” The weight on his body was lessening, though it was like being dragged up from an ocean trench. He clenched one fist, and felt a tear spill from the corner of his eye and down his cheek. The doppelganger lowered the wand—Draco’s wand—until it hovered above his nose. “Don’t cry, weasel. It’s pathetic, and it won’t save you.”

Draco broke the surface. He took a choked breath of air and threw up his arm to knock aside the wand before throwing himself bodily from the bed. His hip and elbow hit the ground hard, but Draco could barely feel it. Through the wall, a muffled shout told Draco that he had just startled Harry out of sleep. Dizzy with panic, Draco’s hands scrabbled at the wood as he rolled onto hands and knees. “Just sit still, weasel. I’ll take care of you,” said the creature behind him, and Draco stumbled over himself, hit the door, “Avada—” Draco threw the door open and lunged sideways out of view of the door into the pitch black of the hall. He was running, vision gone grey at the edges. He caught himself against the next door, his sweaty palm slipping against the polished brass doorknob. After a precious second, the latch yielded, and Draco fell headlong into the room, gasping for breath, every muscle shaking. He lurched, hand flying to his hip, at a touch between his shoulders, but within a moment he recognized the source of the touch. Harry had wrapped an arm around Draco, and his wand was drawn and trained on the open doorway. 

“Lumos mobilis,” Harry said, and an orb of yellow light darted out to hang in the hallway, revealing nothing. “What’s going on?” He asked with a tone of firm urgency, neither relinquishing his hold on Draco nor lowering his wand. 

Tongue still sticky-dry, chest burning, Draco fought for words. “It’s back,” He managed, “In my room. Looks like me.”

“Right,” Harry said, “D’you want to stay behind me or stay here?” He could barely breathe, and didn’t trust his legs to support him, much less move him in a straight line. And that was before even facing the thought of the wand-bearing wraith in his bedroom. 

“Leave me.” 

“Right. I’ll be back. Leave the door open,” Harry said, and squeezed his shoulder before standing up and striding out into the hall. Even barefoot, in boxers and an undershirt, with his wand drawn and his jaw set, Harry cut a figure that engendered confidence. Harry disappeared from sight, and Draco remained on the floor for a moment, catching his breath. The cold sweat on his skin was drying, and this room was much warmer than his own bedroom. Feeling choked in his own clothes, he fumbled at the top button of his shirt, before recognizing the more immediate danger and reaching to his hip for his wand. 

Empty. 

The grey was retreating from his vision as Draco got to his feet. There was no sound through the shared wall. Was that a good sign, or a bad one? Trembling and breathing hard, Draco seated himself on the edge of the bed, facing the open door. The mote of golden light that Harry had created still hung there. Draco waited. What would he do if Potter didn’t return? If he was lucky enough to make it to the main fireplace alive without his wand, and get to the Ministry Atrium to get help, there would surely be a Ministry investigation. What would the punishment be? Lifetime imprisonment? A Dementor’s kiss? Even as Draco entertained dreary possibilities, Harry reappeared in the doorway, wand lowered, and his summoned light faded. Glad as he was that Potter was still alive, Draco took one look at Harry’s face, and with a sinking feeling, knew what he would say before he opened his mouth. 

“It got away again. Turned into smoke,” He said, smoothing back his sleep-mussed hair, “I didn’t even cast a spell, this time. It just kind of dissolved. And then this hit the floor.” Harry held out Draco’s wand. Well, that part was unexpected. Draco started at him, before slowly extending a hand to take it back. The wood of its handle was as warm and comfortable as ever against his palm. So, the thing had, indeed, stolen his wand. That had not been part of the trick. Could it really have cast a spell, then? Dark creatures rarely needed external foci to channel their magic. They were usually potent enough as it was. Perhaps it was all part of some twisted game to torment him—killing him with his own wand. Brow furrowed, Harry joined Draco on the bed, fiddling with his own holly wand. He was shaking, ever so slightly. “I saw what you did again, I think. It looked like you, but older and wrong. It seems like it doesn’t change shape for me, only for you,” He said. Draco wet his lips; his mouth tasted vile. Absent-mindedly, he tapped his wand to his cheek and murmured a tooth-cleaning charm, before summoning a glass from the en suite, and conjuring a stream of water to fill it. He drank long and deep, until his insides felt cold and clean, before noticing that Harry was watching him with a curious light in his green eyes. As their eyes met, Harry managed a small grin, “It’s like you’ve got a spell for everything.” In any other situation, Draco would have been flattered. In that moment, he could only store the compliment away for later, and refill the glass before offering it to Harry, who took it and drank, too. Draco’s hands had steadied, and the wavering of the water was the only sign that Harry wasn’t quite back to normal. 

Draco took a deep breath, “If this thing is stealing my face, if it’s intelligent, then it might intend to parasitize my life, somehow. Act as my doppelganger. I don’t know.”

“It couldn’t act as your doppelganger,” Harry said with annoying certainty. And then, “It was older, and paler than you. Paper pale. It had longer hair, and rotting teeth, and it’s eyes… I mean, it just couldn’t. It just couldn’t. It looked like you in the color of its eyes and parts of the face. But it couldn’t pretend to be you.”

“It might be close enough to fool people who don’t know me, or care to,” Draco said, dragging his fingertips along the rumpled comforter, “It started to cast the killing curse on me. I ran before it finished. If it’s capable of spellcraft… I don’t understand it. Why it’s here. Why it wants to kill me, but seems almost indifferent towards you. The Ministry all but tore up the floorboards, stripping the house of all dark objects and artifacts of esoteric magic, so I don’t think I could have activated a curse in that way.” 

Harry shook his head and shrugged, “Honestly, I haven’t got a clue.” They sat in silence for several long minutes, until Draco could feel leaden exhaustion begin settling over his body. His hip and elbow were throbbing from where he’d cracked them against the wood floor, and his skin felt gritty with sweat. 

“I hate to bother her so late at night,” Draco murmured, “But I feel like shite. And she’ll be cross if I didn’t wake her, anyway… Do you want a calming draught, Potter?”

“I wouldn’t say no to one,” Harry said, cracking a smile, “Just don’t tell Hermione. I’m meant to be trying to wean off, and practice meditation.” 

“Mimsy, could Auror Potter and I each get a calming draught, please?” Draco asked the air, and ten seconds later, wearing a floral pillowcase as a nightgown and a deeply concerned expression, Mimsy appeared with a pop in the guest bedroom with a calming draught in either hand. 

It took a long time to convince her to return to bed after that. Through alternating pleas and murderous looks, Mimsy coaxed them into accepting a calming herbal tea after the potions, and then pressed Draco into taking a bath and changing into proper night clothes. She prodded the table harp into playing a warmer melody, swapped out all the bedclothes in both his bedroom and Harry’s, and set a small brick of magical incense at the edge of the fire. With the room smelling of frankincense and lavender, Draco freshly cleaned and sitting on the edge of the bed, and Harry already half-asleep against the pillows, Mimsy held Draco’s hands in her own. 

“Is Master Malfoy wanting to sleep in his own room, or is you staying here?” She asked, all earnestness, stroking the backs of his hands with her thumbs. Despite the magically induced relaxation, Draco still felt a twinge in his belly, and did his best to laugh it away. 

“Oh, please. Potter doesn’t want—”

Harry, eyes still closed, cut him off. “It’s fine with me if you want to stay. I don’t like sleeping in an empty room anyway.” 

Despite the tea and water, and his now twice-cleaned teeth, Draco’s mouth went dry all over again. “I wouldn’t want to impose,” He said, scrambling for anything to say that would save him from sounding desperate for company and comfort against the terror of his own bedroom. 

“You wouldn’t be. I’m offering,” Harry said. Draco looked at Mimsy with sharp panic. The house elf smiled and squeezed his hands again. 

“Auror Potter is looking after Master Malfoy, as he promised. Good. Good night, Master Malfoy.” With another pop, she was gone. Draco’s hands fell to his knees as she left, unsure if he’d been handed a boon or a curse. It was true that he didn’t want to be alone tonight, and that sharing a bed with Harry would be the realization of a secret fantasy, but certainly, Draco had never wanted it to go like this. Harry, peering at him blearily without his glasses, just pulled the covers down, and patted the mattress beside him, and Draco crawled up the bed to join him under the blankets. 

The bed was warm from Harry’s body heat, and the harp was playing quiet and sweet on the bedside table. The room was full of the rich, soothing aroma of the incense, and the tea and calming draught flowed through his veins, easing his muscles and gentling his thoughts. His wand was within sight on the bedside table, and at his side, Harry gave a gentle groan, and burrowed into the pillows. “Night, Draco,” he said. 

Despite the unfamiliar bed company and the events that had passed just an hour earlier, it had been a long time since Draco had been swept to sleep so quickly and peacefully.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco and Harry wake up together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note changed rating. ;)

Draco woke slowly, sleep clinging to his mind. He was cozy and comfortable, though it felt as though the night must have killed the fire in the grate, and the room beyond was colder than he would have liked. Through his eyelids, he could see sunlight, and he turned his face away from it, into the pillows, determined to remain in his lovely daze. The bedclothes were all scented with the sweet smoke of incense, and he was curled against a warm body. His cock was hard, as it so often was upon first waking, and with a lazy tilt of his hips, he pressed it forward, granting himself a little bit of friction and pressure. A low heat of arousal simmered under his skin, but Draco wasn’t really ready to wake up yet. A small voice in the back of his head told him that he didn’t really want to regain his wits, and he believed it. Better not to wake to harsh reality. He was drifting through a dream; basking in sensual pleasure.

“Draco,” The voice was steady, but no more than a whisper. It sounded very familiar. “You awake?” Draco groaned, petulant, screwing his eyes tighter shut. Perhaps the voice would be quiet, and he could sleep a little longer. He resituated his hips again, pressing his body into the warmth. “Draco,” The voice said again, and at last, he opened his eyes. A cold, bright beam of sun lit the room from the windows, half-blinding him. Dazzled, he blinked against it, eyelids still heavy with sleep. When the shapes of the room resolved, Draco found himself face-to-face with Harry Potter. Maybe on some level, he had known that’s who he was sharing a bed with. Maybe that was why he had been so reluctant to relinquish sleep—because he did not want to let go of early morning comforts, and face the harsh realities of the day to come. An unnamed horror in his home, and the twisted emotions that took precedence over whatever it was his cock thought might happen.

“Fuck,” He muttered, pushing himself backwards to put some empty space between their bodies, feeling blood rise to his cheeks. Was it too much to hope that Harry hadn’t noticed? Harry’s chuckle told him that yes, in fact, it was. “Merlin and Morgana,” Draco said, and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Hey. Hey,” Harry said, voice still quiet but bright with laughter, “S’alright. Come on. That’s not the first time I’ve had a dick pressed against me, and I hope it’s not the last, either.” The sound Draco choked out was halfway between a laugh and a groan, but the opportunistic part of him had made a gleeful note: rumor confirmed. Potter wasn’t straight. He opened his eyes to level what he hoped was a withering look at Harry, though it was very early in the morning. Harry just looked back with a face full of honest curiosity. “You know, Draco,” he said, “It’s like you’re so smooth and poised until you do something a bit vulnerable or foolish or embarrassing, and then it all goes to hell, and you start acting like a wet cat.”

“So you’ve noticed my fragile ego,” Draco said in icy tones, “Thank you ever so much for pointing it out.”

“I wasn’t trying to insult you. I’m just saying, it seems like it upsets you so much, when it’s only being human,” Harry said, unabashed. Draco’s ears were smarting from the heat of his own blush. That much was true, maybe. Whatever standards for avoiding embarrassment others set up for themselves were worlds away from what Draco’s were.

“Isn’t it a little early in the morning for whatever the fuck this Auror psychoanalysis is?”

“Isn’t it a little early in the morning to fight me? We can just settle back down and relax for a bit.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you Potter?” Draco hissed, eyes locked on Harry’s, who looked back, utterly without venom, tousle-haired and unshaved, “For me to just lay down and take whatever it is you shove at me.”

“Whatever you want, honestly,” Harry said. And the warm look in his eyes was nothing short of an invitation. In a rush—before he could think better of it—Draco had half thrown off the blankets and rolled up, onto his knees, grabbing the back of Harry’s head to drag him into a fierce kiss. Harry’s hair was thick and soft in his hand, and in his eagerness, their teeth hit painfully. But Draco couldn’t let himself relent for a moment. Their lips moved together, and Draco tasted the warmth of Harry’s tongue against his own. Stress, embarrassment, and months of sexual frustration found some escape through the shuddering groan that Harry made against his mouth as Draco dragged his fingernails down the back of Harry’s neck. There was a deepening color on Harry’s tan cheeks, and a wildness in his eyes that Draco felt mirrored in the eager beating of his own heart.

He put a leg over Harry’s waist, reaching his free hand up under Harry’s shirt to feel muscle and a rasp of chest hair against his palm. “Get your shirt off,” he said, freeing his hands.

“Yeah. You too,” Harry said as he sat up, eyes glittering, and caught Draco’s mouth in another kiss before yanking his shirt off over his head. Draco shucked off his own shirt, tossing it across the room before dragging Harry back into their breathless embrace.

They lost their pants some time after, and Draco put a hand on his wand long enough to cast the necessary spells before grabbing Harry by the hip, leaning forward to speak into his ear, “Go on and brace yourself against the headboard, Potter. Unless you’ve got a better idea.”

“I’m pretty sure we’re on first-name terms, Draco,” Harry said, still smiling that _frustrating _smile. But he wasted no time in doing as he was asked. Draco set a brutal pace for fifteen minutes that left them both sweating and his veins singing with a cleansing fire. With one arm wrapped around Harry’s chest, and the other playing at his throat, stroking his arms, his stomach, tugging at his cock, Draco kept his mouth busy biting Harry’s shoulder, or laving his throat with his tongue—that divine taste of sweat mid-sex—or else whispering sweet profanities into Harry’s ear. 

“I never could have imagined you taking cock so well,” he’d murmured, just able to catch the corner of Harry’s mouth tugging up into a smile, “But you’re taking mine marvelously. You torture me to no end, do you know that, Harry? Even good at this. And who had the audacity to put you in those dragonhide trousers? It’s not _decent_. They look straight out of a skin mag.”

“Someone who wanted to please the public, I guess. Saw you looking,” Harry had shot back, “Ah, there. Just like that...” After that, he’d pinned Harry down on his stomach with a pillow under his hips to work him over for another seven minutes, watching Harry rut against it with razor-sharp delight. He delayed his own satisfaction for as long as possible, until Harry had grated out a sound of post-orgasmic overstimulation, put his face in the crook of his arm and groaned, “_Please_, Draco.” He was going to commit that sound to memory. ‘_Please_, Draco’. He came too, then, vision going white, legs trembling, as he propped himself up against Harry’s back, moving gently through the aftershocks before pushing away and flopping heavily onto his back beside him, still breathing hard. Harry, face half-hidden by a pillow, was watching him. “Do you like cuddling afterwards, at all?” Harry said, and Draco took a beat, then nodded. It would be foolish to deny himself that much at this point. Giving Draco just enough time to shoot off a couple cleaning charms, Harry rolled onto his back and reached out to draw Draco in. Draco found a place to rest his head in the hollow of Harry’s shoulder, and he closed his eyes, body limp and relaxed from the exertion. Harry’s fingers traced patters on the small of his back, and Draco listened to the beating of his heart, and felt the rise and fall of Harry’s chest, and tried his best to neither question his luck nor invite too much rumination over the possible implications of their half an hour shag. 

Eventually, Harry nudged Draco’s cheek with his shoulder, and gently extricated himself from his arms. Silhouetted by brilliant sunlight, Harry stretched, then turned towards the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower, if that’s alright,” he said, “Breakfast after?”

“Of course,” Draco said, lingering for just a moment longer in bed to appreciate the beauty of Harry’s back and arse, and the strong, lean lines of his legs, “I’ll have Mimsy do your wash while you’re washing up. Then we can have breakfast.” And after that, with some luck, one of Potter’s friends might have found something useful over the course of the evening. This particular morning, despite the misery of the previous night, Draco dared to extend hope. 


End file.
